Alaska offering a cautionary tale for COVID- 19 with arrival of winter
PALMER, ALASKA » Over the summer months, Alaska’s restaurants filled up, the state invited tourists to come explore and fisheries workers arrived by the thousands to live in crowded bunkhouses. And yet the coronavirus remained largely in check.
Of course, Alaska had the benefit of isolation and wide- 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 acclaimed contact tracing system has grown strained.
At a time when cases across the United States 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.
On Friday, the weekly case average in Alaska reached its highest point of the year. The percentage of people testing positive has doubled in recent weeks. In parts of the state, tribal villages have been forced into lockdown.
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 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.
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 it 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.
Cleveland said the village has been in a lockdown that is expected to last about a month. He said residents have at times struggled to get supplies such as masks and gloves, and he worries about what lies ahead.
Gov. Mike Dunleavy said that he had expected cases would go up as the weather changed, and that the state had continued to build out supplemental hospital capacity should it be needed.
“It’s going to be a very tough fall and winter for the entire world,” he said.
One of the challenges that Zink has consistently faced is convincing 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.
In Fairbanks, the mayor said a local order would send people outside the city limits in places where masks would not be required. He instead focused on trying to coax people by encouragement.
In Wasilla over the weekend, people gathered in rows of tables at a Germanthemed bar for the start of an Oktoberfest celebration While the outdoor seating offered panoramic views the weather was near freezing so people crowded inside, where no one was wearing masks.