A new coronavirus death this week in a resident of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta adds fuel to regional calls for stricter test protocols to prevent the virus from spreading to urban hot spots like Anchorage.
About a dozen people tested positive in Bethel over the past week, including five state court and prison workers – a marked increase given 54 total cases confirmed in the region between March and mid-August.
Officials at the regional bureau of health, the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corp. advocate for local employers – including the state of Alaska – to begin testing all workers coming to Bethel and surrounding villages.
Health officials last month also asked Bethel City Council to mandate airport testing for all incoming travelers and presented a draft ordinance to the city attorney, modeled after the state aviation mandate, which requires evidence of a negative test, a test on the airport, as a promise for 14 days quarantine.
“There’s a reason we take this so seriously,” Dan Winkelman, president and CEO of YKHC, said Thursday. “Last night we had our second death of a resident of the YK Delta from COVID. This is a very serious illness. ”
The health organization reported the death of a Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta resident in her 50s on Thursday. The person died at the Bethel hospital from complications due to COVID-19, officials say. The mortality rate marks the second for the region; a non-resident tested positive there in July and died after being transferred to Anchorage for medical care.
Bethel, the largest rural hub community in Alaska with 6,500 residents, serves as the regional center for more than 50 smaller road system villages across the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. Like other remote locations in Alaska, increasing counts of coronavirus are raising concerns that an increase in COVID-19 patients could overwhelm health care capacity, especially with school dropouts and flu season.
There is no ICU in Bethel’s Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta Regional Hospital. People who test positive when they arrive at Bethel or wait for results have a few housing options for quarantine or isolation. Just two of the 10 rooms set up for positive as pending COVID-19 cases were open in a hotel in the city, YKHC officials say.
The Alaska Airlines flight, which arrives once a day, can carry 80 people, according to health organization spokeswoman Tiffany Zulkosky. Half to three-quarters of passengers take voluntary tests at the airport, Zulkosky said. The rest runs out in the community.
‘They travel to Anchorage or Southcentral or other areas where active community is spread out. They bring back the virus, asymptomatically, “said Winkelman. “But for our airport testing program, we would not know about those active cases.”
Airport testing has confirmed about half of the cases in the region, officials say.
Of the new cases confirmed in the region last week, three work at Yukon Kuskokwim Correctional Center. Two employees of the state court in Bethel also tested positive, briefing the courtroom briefly for the public to clean up. One was a pilot for Grant Aviation, which provides regional air services to and from Bethel.
The pilot, a Juneau resident, initially tested negative after traveling to the lower 48 for a family emergency, according to Grant Aviation CFO Rob Kelley. But a follow-up test was positive, Kelley said, adding the pilot has no symptoms of the disease.
About a dozen other pilots were found to test close contacts negatively, he said, which makes the company think the second result may have been a false positive.
The pilot flew passengers before the second test results returned, and all were notified, Kelley said, adding that he had not heard from anyone testing positive.
Grant would have “absolutely zero problem” with a Bethel test claim if the tests were delivered, he said.
YKHC provides free airport testing, with the funds of the CARES Act, officials there say. To date, the organization has spent more than $ 1 million on COVID-19 operating costs.
However, the YKHC mandatory testing bid has an up-and-coming battle: There is no ordinance requiring airport testing at the next municipal council agency, although the council has adopted a mask mandate for urban amenities and strongly encourages residents and visitors to wear them in specific situations, according to city resident Lori Strickler.
City officials expressed concern that they lacked legal authority to require health mandates, but guidance from the Alaska Municipal Attorney Association indicates that the city has that power, said YKHC attorney Chris Beltzer.
A spokesman for the state Department of Health and Social Services, meanwhile, said in an email that officials there “had no communication from YKHC on this subject. If YKHC wants to have a conversation, they know how to “Contact DHSS. DHSS will not debate any concept on the media.”
Many communities have set up their own test protocols depending on the best fit for residents, said DHSS spokeswoman Clinton Bennett. More than half of the nationwide test sites are served by tribal health organizations through collaborative partnerships.
A contractor working in the region said adding more test protocols could further complicate Alaska’s already challenging work environment in rural areas, pointing out that projects currently underway before the pandemic occurred, so delays to wait for test results and other costs were not practiced in calculation estimates.
But Alaska State Rep. Lyman Hoffman, a Bethel Democrat, said he supports mandatory testing at the airport and for workers, including those deployed by the state.
Hoffman pointed to the vulnerability of elderly villagers, some of whom grew up hearing stories of the deadly 1918 flu pandemic. Recent data from the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services showed that Alaska Natives, as well as Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders , disproportionately likely to get COVID-19 and also experience more severe illness.
Hoffman flew home from Anchorage last week and received a call this week: Someone within a few rows of his on the plane tested positive. Well, he said Thursday, he’s still a week on lock.
“This COVID problem is a very, very serious problem,” Hoffman said. “The elders in the region, many of them understanding what happened a lot, many years ago were devastating to Alaska residents and they are being severely injured by COVID.”
