Dunleavy extends disaster for a month

ANCHORAGE — Gov. Mike Dunleavy addressed the press on Tuesday with a positive message about the arrival of 35,100 Pfizer BioNtech vaccines for COVID-19 that have already begun being distributed and administered.

“Right now we’re making decent progress,” said Dunleavy. “We’ve been at this unfortunately since last January into February when things started to really pick up and we know that we’re maintaining where we’re at in terms of hospital capacity and our numbers are leveling off and that’s again because of the efforts of individual Alaskans. If you go to a store, you go out, you’ll see many folks wearing masks voluntarily. You’ll see folks social distancing voluntarily and again as I mentioned in the spring time and the summer this is what got Alaska to where we were in terms of our numbers and it’s going to be individual Alaskans like yourselves that’ll get us out of this so we see light at the end of the tunnel.”

On Wednesday, 604 new cases were announced among Alaska residents with 123 coming from the Mat-Su Valley. There have been a total of 41,041 residents statewide who have tested positive and 5,607 in the Mat-Su. There have been 1,432 nonresident cases with 18 hospitalizations and one death. Overall, 903 Alaskans have been hospitalized due to COVID-19 and 129 people are currently hospitalized statewide, accounting for 15.8 percent of all hospitalizations across Alaska with nine more suspected positive awaiting test results. There are 31 Intensive Care Unit beds available across Alaska. In the Mat-Su, 59 residents have been hospitalized and 19 people are currently hospitalized with COVID-19 accounting for 26 percent of all hospitalized patients at Mat-Su Regional Medical Center. There is only one ICU bed available at MSRMC out of 14 total. The Mat-Su has a 9.87 seven-day test positivity rate and 75,368 tests have been conducted in the Valley thus far.

“You can see here we were really on an upward trajectory and then you can see that we’ve been somewhat on a downward trajectory,” said Alaska’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Anne Zink. “We know some people don’t get that ill when they get this virus, but this really minimizes those additional people. We also see longer lasting immunity and better immunity with the vaccine than we do with natural infection.”

Zink detailed the change in trajectory of the amount of positive cases that had been rolling in and the data backlog that artificially inflated numbers and pointed to Dunleavy’s November 12 message to Alaskans as a turning point in the trajectory. Though the percent positivity rate for Alaska is at 6.4 percent, Zink said she hopes that Alaskans can work to get that number under five percent. Zink suggested that people view positive cases by onset dates to get a more accurate picture of when people were contracting the virus. Additionally, Department of Health and Social Services Commissioner Adam Crum said that the state had completely caught up on the data entry backlog with a more effective system for electronic feed reporting from clinicians.

“We’ve been very successful in getting this information in a refined manner on these electronic feeds which has really helped,” said Crum.

Governor Dunleavy announced that he was extending his disaster declaration from November had been extended until January 15 and he would indeed be taking the vaccine in a matter of weeks.

“I will take the vaccine. I’ve been fortunate to date that I’ve not contracted the virus. I’ve had multiple tests that indicate that I have not contracted the virus. I’ll get it because I don’t want to potentially occupy a bed. I’m going to take it so I don’t have to go to a doctor, so I’m going to do what I think is best for me. I would encourage others to do what they believe is best for them,” said Dunleavy. “It’s still going to be touch and go, probably a tough month or so until these vaccinations start to kick in. Now again, these vaccinations are not mandatory we are not mandating vaccinations.”

Dunleavy asked that Alaskans respect the choices of individuals who may or may not choose to be vaccinated and said that with the arrival of vaccinations, the anticipation is that the hospitalization rate drops dramatically before the case counts do so. Alaska still maintains the second lowest rate of mortality from COVID-19 in the United States.

“We’re committed to a state to do anything and everything we can to help our fellow Alaskans in their time of need,” said Dunleavy. “We’ve got to continue to be vigilant. We have to continue to social distance, we have to continue to do our work online when possible, we have to continue to not mix especially with strangers.”

Zink said that the Pfizer vaccine may take up to five weeks before it is 95 percent effective, and is just 54 percent effective one week after the first of two shots. Zink said that the vaccine was more effective immunization than contracting the virus and pending approval, a vaccine from Moderna could arrive as soon as next week.

“Seeing the data and the science behind these vaccines, this Pfizer vaccine and now the Moderna vaccine has been really astonishing to watch on the front line. No steps were skipped in the process and it’s been pretty impressive. I think this is a big turning point for vaccines in general. It’s built on a lot of solid science and we’re really excited to be getting it out particularly to those who are most at risk,” said Zink. “Across the U.S. and including Alaska we have not seen a real uptick of flu cases as of yet. We have also seen more Alaskans get their flu vaccine this year than ever before.”

Those listed in tiers one and two of ‘Phase 1a’ of the vaccine distribution include hospital based frontline healthcare workers at the highest risk, long term nursing facility residents and staff including prison infirmary staff, Emergency Medical Services and Fire Department personnel, community health aides, practitioners and those administering the vaccine. Zink said that the allocation committee would continue to update their guidance on the state website.

“We are pretty darn excited,” said Zink. “Vaccines are here in the state of Alaska. Every pandemic, every major challenge has a beginning, a middle and an end and really today was the first day of the beginning of our last chapter in this pandemic starting to be able to vaccinate people. It’s not fully written and we’ve got a long way to go but this is a pretty big turning point overall.”