The Fairbanks North Star Borough fell back into the “Intermediate” alert level for COVID-19 for the first time since August. The area has a 14-day average of 8.31 cases per 100,000 people per day, and has fallen under the 10-cases-per-day threshold that changes policies for the Borough, the school district and some employers.
Alaska’s statewide COVID-19 case rate is still slowly improving and is now 8.16 per 100,000 people, also at the Intermediate alert level.
Health officials draw a straight line to the falling number of cases from the increasing vaccination rate.
While nearly 48 47.9% of Alaskans 16 and older have been fully vaccinated, the FNSB still has one of the state’s worst vaccination rates with about 41 percent. 40.8%.
The Department of Health & Social Services announced 99 new resident COVID-19 cases from last Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Among the new cases were 9 in Fairbanks, 3 in Tok and 2 in Healy. About 9% percent of Alaskans, 67,199 out of 733,391, have had a case of COVID-19. There are 17 COVID-related cases in Alaska hospitals. Two of these folks are on ventilators.
362 Alaskans have died of the disease.