Region has 125 active COVID-19 cases
Over the last week, Norton Sound Health Corporation has identified 128 new COVID-19 cases across the region. With four cases recovering, this brings the total number of active cases to 125.
On Tuesday, August 17, NSHC identified 15 new COVID-19 cases. On Wednesday, 34 individuals tested positive for COVID-19.
Norton Sound did not report any COVID-19 diagnoses on Thursday, though 71 people tested positive between Friday and Sunday.
On Monday, August 23, NSHC identified eight COVID-19 cases, including two in Nome and six in Stebbins.
Of the 125 individuals with active COVID-19 cases, one is in Unalakleet, one is in Savoonga, one is in Shishmaref, two are in Gambell, five are in Nome, 26 are in St. Michael and 89 are in Stebbins.
St. Michael and Stebbins both remain in strict lockdowns to slow the spread of COVID-19. During these lockdowns, residents will have to place orders for groceries at the local stores online, and students started school via distance learning packets on Wednesday. The lockdowns will continue until there are no new cases identified in the villages for at least 14 days.
“We continue to have quite a few folks in quarantine in Stebbins,” said NSHC medical director Dr. Mark Peterson during the weekly tribal leaders COVID-19 conference call. “We have about 150 to 175 in Stebbins that continue to get tested to see if they turn positive, and in St. Michael we have about 70 people in quarantine and we’re watching those and testing them to see if they turn positive.”
Cases across most of the villages are travel related, Dr. Peterson said, but most are community spread in both St. Michael and in Stebbins.
Dr. Peterson recommends a return to stricter COVID-19 precautions from the early days of the pandemic, including masking when indoors, despite vaccination status.
“Right now, we’re recommending that we have a regional mask mandate, meaning everybody should be masking indoors,” he said. “In the grocery stores, in the post offices,
whether you’re vaccinated or not. While we’re having this Delta outbreak, we really should be doing that. Across the country, that’s happening again where stores and businesses are saying ‘Let’s mask up again while the Delta is spreading.’”
Despite record-breaking numbers of COVID-19 cases in the region, Nome City Manager Glenn Steckman is not considering any mandatory COVID-19 protective measures at this time. City staff is watching very closely the increase of COVID cases in the Nome Census Area, he told the Nugget. “Most of the cases are outside of Nome and are in villaddddges surrounding Nome. If we did see an outbreak, the first thing I would probably move towards is a mask mandate in indoor public spaces,” Steckman said.
There is no official number of cases that constitutes an outbreak, Steckman said, but that he and city staff are keeping a close eye on Nome’s community spread cases to determine if there is a sharp increase in cases in a short span of time.
“There’s not a magic number [of positives], but if we got an indication that it had been a day or two period where we began to see a large outbreak, then we would require face masks in public spaces,” he said. “One of the benefits to our community is that, in Nome, we’re about 75 percent vaccinated for those that are eligible.”
Prior to the emergence of the Delta variant in the region, Dr. Peterson encouraged all communities to try to get at least 70 percent of the population vaccinated to reach “herd immunity.” The Delta variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes the disease known as COVID-19, is two to three times more easily spread than the earlier strains of the virus. It also causes so-called breakthrough infections in vaccinated people and 30 percent of all COVID-19 cases have been in individuals who are vaccinated, Peterson said.
“With the vaccine, you may still get sick with COVID, but you’re not going to be as sick with COVID and you’re not going to die from COVID,” Dr. Peterson said, and encouraged all eligible individuals to get vaccinated.
On Monday, August 23, the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine received full FDA approval for use in individuals over the age of 16. It remains authorized for emergency use in children ages 12-15 and is projected to be available to children ages 2-11 later this fall.
“We’re really excited at Norton Sound Health Corporation here because of the full approval from the FDA for the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine,” NSHC CEO Angie Gorn said during the weekly COVID-19 conference call. “Just getting that FDA approval for 16 and up is one step closer to where we want to be, so we’re really excited to see that come through.”
Full FDA approval has opened the door for several organizations across the country to mandate the vaccine, including the U.S. military and several school districts. In May, NSHC made the vaccine mandatory for all employees, though Dr. Peterson said 100 percent of the medical staff had already been vaccinated at that point.
Although the City of Nome is not currently mandating any masking, several local businesses are requiring or encouraging mask use. Nome’s Post Office has new signage up encouraging all customers to wear masks inside, and the Bering Straits Native Corporation Building has signs on the doors requiring masks for anyone inside the building. Additionally, local businesses are beginning to put limits on indoor events. The weekly trivia night that occurred at the Gold Dust Bar on Wednesday nights has been put on hold until
COVID-19 risk decreases.
Across Alaska, there have been 84,272 total COVID-19 cases, 2,127 hospitalizations, and 414 deaths. 2,913 individuals tested positive for COVID-19 in the last week, an increase from the weeks prior. There are 126 people across the state currently hospitalized with COVID-19, and 27 patients are currently on ventilators. Of the 120 adult ICU beds in the state, 93 are currently occupied.
In Nome, Norton Sound, and the Bering Strait region, there have been a total of 779 total COVID-19 cases, 128 of which were diagnosed in the last week. There have been eight total hospitalizations and zero deaths in the region.