Worried about COVID-19 in winter?
Alaska provides early warning about next phase of pandemic
PALMER, Alaska — Over t he summer months, Alaska’s restaurants filled up, the state invited tourists to come explore and fisheries workers arrived by the t housands to l i ve in crowded bunkhouses. And yet the coronavirus remained largely in check.
Of course, Alaska had the benefit of isolation and open spaces. But officials had also developed a containment effort unlike any other in the country, doing more testing than almost every other state and then tracking every person who came back positive with an army of contact tracers, following up with daily phone calls for those infected and all their close contacts.
It paid off: Even with the extensive search for possible infections, Alaska was recording some of the fewest coronavirus cases per capita in the nation.
Now, as temperatures begin dipping back below freezing and sunset arrives with dinner, the state’s social gatherings, recreational activities and restaurant seating have started moving back indoors — and the virus has seized new opportunities. With new case clusters emerging throughout the state, the contact tracing system has grown strained.
At a time when cases across the country are rising and people are growing fatigued by months of restrictions, Alaska’s struggles provide an early warning that winter could bring the most devastating phase of the pandemic.
“We’ve been markedly concerned about what the fall and winter will look like, and I think it’s playing out
that it’s highly concerning,” said Dr. Anne Zink, Alaska’s chief medical officer.
The percentage of people testing positive has doubled in recent weeks. In parts of the state, tribal villages have been forced into lockdown.
Across the country, cases have been surging toward new highs since the onset of fall. At least 12 states have added more cases in the past week than in any other seven-day stretch — many of them northern states such as the Dakotas, and midwest states including Wisconsin and Illinois.
Along with cold-season gatherings moving into more confined spaces, there is evidence that the coronavirus is more virulent in colder weather and lower relative humidities.
Dr. Mohammad Sajadi, who studies infectious diseases at the University of Maryland, was among the researchers who examined
global trends in the early part of the pandemic and saw a weather correlation.
Sajadi said there could be a range of factors: Researchers have found that some viruses persist longer in colder and drier conditions; that aerosolized viruses can remain more stable in cooler air; that viruses can replicate more swiftly in such conditions; and that human immune systems may respond differently depending on seasons.
It is possible that the virus will spread rapidly in the coming months and create the need for new lockdown restrictions, Sajadi said.
“The conditions will be prime for something like that happening,” he said.
Alaska faces some particular challenges as winter approaches, with state officials fearing the prospect of an outbreak in a remote setting: Most villages in the state are unconnected to the
road system, and winter weather could prevent medevac flights from reaching them. Zink described one small community with no running water that is currently dealing with an outbreak, and weather has already prevented officials from getting supplies in. She declined to identify the community for privacy reasons.
On the western coast of the state, 68 people in the Native village of Kwinhagak have tested positive and four of them have had to get medevac flights to Anchorage, said Ferdinand Cleveland, the tribal administrator. The community has about 800 residents.
Cleveland said the village has been in a lockdown that is expected to last about a month.
“I’m expecting another wave,” he said.
Gov. Mike Dunleavy said that he had expected cases
would go up as the weather changed.
“It’s going to be a very tough fall and winter for the entire world,” he said.
In the pandemic of 1918, influenza killed more than half of the residents in some of Alaska’s Native communities. The virus had arrived by boat from Seattle, where crews had screened passengers to prevent any spread, only to have an outbreak begin in Nome in the days after the ship docked.
Most of the territory’s deaths during the pandemic occurred over the subsequent weeks.
That history surfaced in the spring, when Alaska was deciding whether to move ahead with a fishing season that would draw thousands of people from elsewhere. Community members balked at the possibility of bringing the virus to areas that had managed to have few if any infections.
The season ultimately went ahead with extensive testing and restrictions. Officials believe it was largely a success.
One of the challenges that Zink has faced is persuading residents to wear masks and stay distanced. In May, when Dunleavy lifted statewide restrictions, he left decisions about how to manage the pandemic to local jurisdictions.
At a hockey tournament this month in Anchorage, videos showed some parents in the stands without masks.
Darryl Thompson, the president of the Alaska State Hockey Association, who did not attend the tournament, said he believed that too many people were at the games and that parents should have taken more responsibility to keep apart.
“We as a community could have done better,” Thompson said.