Seven COVID cases in region
Alaska’s health commissioner Adam Crum announced on Monday that the public health emergency order for COVID-19 will end on July 1, 2022. The Dept. of Health and Social Services will continue to monitor and report COVID cases weekly, and the department is working to public health tools developed during the pandemic permanent or sustainable. “What’s changing for the average Alaskan is nothing,” Crum said.
Norton Sound Health Corporation’s Medical Director Dr. Peterson said that his advice continues to be: 1. Get vaccinated and boosted, for the best protection; 2. If you develop symptoms of COVID, get tested right away; 3. If you are high risk for severe COVID, you should be careful and avoid locations where you’re at higher risk of contracting COVID. Wear a mask when in crowds or on airplanes; 4. If we see case counts rising significantly, we would then be making new recommendations regarding masking and possibly other measures.
Dr. Peterson explained in an email to the Nugget that for the last two weeks, NSHC has been doing 20-70 tests a day, with a positivity rate of under 5 percent, a number widely used throughout the pandemic to know if enough testing is being done to adequately understand the extent of the outbreak. The large variation in daily testing depends on the number of positive cases, he said, because NSHC asks all close contacts to get tested.
Daily new cases in the country have dipped to just under 100,000, the first time in a month. At the same time, new variants, known as BA.4 and BA.4, appear to be following similar trajectories to previous Omicron variants. Researchers across the world, from Japan to South Africa to the United States, have looked at
data which suggest the new variants are even more effective at evading immune responses than before.
All of this comes as much of the immunity conveyed by vaccination and past infections wane. The CDC currently recommends a second booster for anyone over the age of 50 whose last shot was five or more months ago. According to DHSS data, only 41 percent of the Nome, Norton Sound and Bering Strait region has received their booster.
The FDA is meeting this week to discuss emergency use authorization of another vaccine, by NovaVax. Unlike the mRNA vaccines of Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna or the adenovirus-vector vaccines of Johnson & Johnson, the NovaVax vaccine uses a well-understood protein-based platform. The FDA will also be meeting this month to discuss emergency use authorization of the Pfizer vaccine in children 6 months to 5-years-old.
Last week, the Justice Department filled a 48-page brief asked a federal appeals court to overturn the decision saying mask mandates on airlines were unlawful. The decision, made by a controversial federal judge in Florida, was based on the CDC’s authority, and came down to the definition of the word “sanitize.” The Justice Department’s brief said that the mask mandate “falls easily within the CDC’s statutory authority.” Cases have risen across the country steadily since the mask mandate was revoked.
The week in numbers
On Tuesday, May 31, NSHC identified no new cases, dropping the number of active cases in the region to two, both in Nome.
On Wednesday, June 1, NSHC identified eight COVID-19 cases in the region. Five were in Shishmaref and three were in Nome. Active cases in the region rose to seven, with four in Nome and three in Shishmaref.
On Thursday, June 2, NSHC identified eight more new cases in the region. Five were in Nome, and one in each of Gambell, Shishmaref, and Saint Michael. Active cases jumped to 15: nine in Nome, four in Shishmaref, one in Gambell, and one in Saint Michael.
Over the weekend, NSHC identified three new cases in the region: two in Shishmaref, and one in Nome. There were 10 active cases in the region: five in Nome, three in Shishmaref and one in Saint Michael.
On Monday, June 6, NSHC identified two new cases in the region, again both in Nome.
There are seven active cases in the region: five in Nome and two in Shishmaref.
The totals
Since the start of the pandemic the United States of America has had 84,960,752 officially reported cases of COVID-19 and 1,009,063 associated deaths.
Alaska has had 253,184 reported cases of COVID-19, 3,776 hospitalizations, and 1,252 deaths. There are currently 50 people hospitalized due to COVID-19, the most in three months.
The Nome, Bering Strait and Norton Sound region had at least 6,021 cases of COVID-19, 44 hospitalizations and six deaths.