This week the Department of Health and Social Services stopped updating its Covid-19 Information Hub on a daily basis, and is now reporting the updates just three times a week.
The exceptions are hospital data and vaccine monitoring dashboards, which will be updated five days a week. Daily summary emails and social media posts will also be reduced to three times per week, the department said.
Last June, the state was seeing a sharp uptick in Covid-19 cases, and was alarmed at the new highs being set routinely as the virus spread across the state. A 44-case day last June 25 shocked the state.
This year, there were 50 new cases of Covid-19 over three days and few paid attention to it. The statewide alert, once high, is now low.
- June 4 cases – 19 residents, 0 nonresident
- June 5 cases – 22 residents, 0 nonresident
- June 6 cases – 8 residents, 1 nonresident
And 47 percent of Alaskans ages 12 and older have been vaccinated, while 53 percent have received a first dose of Covid vaccine.
The vaccination rates across the state show that Juneau is at the highest level, with more than two-thirds of its people vaccinated, while just one-third of the Mat-Su Valley residents have been vaccinated, ranking at the bottom. Juneau has experienced 1,303 cases, or about 4.3 percent of the population, while Mat-Su Borough has seen 11,623 cases, or 11 percent of the population:
- Juneau Region: 67%
- Other Southeast Region – Northern: 63%
- YK-Delta Region: 61%
- Southwest Region: 55%
- Other Southeast Region – Southern: 54%
- Northwest Region: 51%
- Anchorage Region: 49%
- Other Interior Region: 49%
- Kenai Peninsula Region: 41%
- Fairbanks North Star Borough: 40%
- Matanuska-Susitna Region: 32%
A total of 67,698 known cases of Covid-19 have been diagnosed in Alaska, while the total number of nonresident cases diagnosed in the state is 2,822, In the year and a half since the pandemic, 1,581 Alaskans have been hospitalized with the virus and 362 deaths are reportedly due to Covid-19.
There are currently 21 patients diagnosed with Covid-19 who are hospitalized and two additional patients who are considered persons under investigation for a total of 23 current Covid-related hospitalizations. Four of these patients are on ventilators. The percentage of patients currently hospitalized with Covid-19 is 2.3%.
A total of 2,300,710 tests have been conducted, with 20,413 tests conducted in the previous seven days. The average percentage of daily positive tests for the previous seven days is 0.87%.
