Last week, Alaska was administering more injections of COVID-19 per capita than any other state in the country, an impressive statistic given the challenge of taking the vaccine over rough terrain without roads to distant communities in the country’s only arctic state.
Still, the Alaskan launch hit hard spots, especially for the elderly. And Alaska’s rating is not that high when it comes to administered shots of the total received, where the state is closest to the middle of the national picture, according to CDC data.
West Virginia, which relied on the National Guard and mainly local pharmacies to help administer the vaccine, had used 83% of its vaccine on Sunday and previously ranked first for most vaccinated residents per capita.
On Monday, at least one dose of the vaccine was delivered to the arms of 80,300 Alaskans, and nearly 18,000 received two doses. This means that just under 70% of the total vaccine that the state had received in December and January had already been used. This number does not include doses administered through the Department of Defense or the Alaska Veterans Affairs system.
Health officials here say several factors have helped boost Alaska at least temporarily at the top of the list in terms of vaccine doses given per capita across the country through January, according to a CDC tracker.
On the one hand, Alaska received a large number of doses through the Indian Health Service for distribution by tribal health organizations at faster delivery times. In some rural communities, teenagers are already being vaccinated.
Health officials here have also decided to make Alaska the only state to receive monthly – rather than weekly – vaccine shipments, which they said added efficiency and predictable supplies to the process.
There are also several Alaskan entities receiving vaccines, said the state’s chief physician, Dr. Anne Zink, last week. Shipments of specific doses for veterans and military personnel mean that more vaccines are being launched, although the CDC does not track the total doses administered in the state.
State officials say another reason for Alaska’s success is that the decline in COVID-19 cases has allowed public health professionals and health care providers to put most of their energy into rapid delivery of the vaccine, a trend seen across the country in the states without increasing numbers.
Alaskan coronavirus infections declined last month, after increasing in November and early December. As of Friday, hospitalizations were less than a third of the number seen during autumn and winter, and the test’s positivity dropped from a 9% rise in November to just over 3%.
Alaska’s ranking is also relative: other states are really struggling to launch the vaccine. In Florida, vaccine sites broke down, call centers were overwhelmed, and many eligible people were rejected due to limited supplies. In California, supply chain bottlenecks, limited federal guidance and overburdened resources have led to one of the country’s slowest vaccine implementations.
Zink defended the status of the Alaskan vaccine on twitter last week, pointing out that more people are now vaccinated than have been diagnosed with the virus since the pandemic arrived in Alaska in March.
“We saw vaccines being delivered on helicopters (airplanes), cars, dog sleds and ferries,” wrote Zink. “We saw vaccination sites with cars, boats, trucks or snow machines. We saw the vaccine delivered by hand to homes, nursing homes, workplaces and hospital employees in shifts. “
She was immediately exposed to people unable to schedule vaccination appointments.
The state’s implementation was not entirely smooth. Immediately, problems arose – as happened across the country – to place the vaccine in long-term care centers. Some health professionals have refused to take injections.
Then, frustration and confusion followed an accelerated period of eligibility for people over 65 in early January. The increase in interest reached the limit of most consultations in less than an hour and overwhelmed the state’s vaccine stock.
Cynthia Brown, left, holds Irvin Morris Jr’s hand while he receives a COVID-19 vaccine from Joyce Yuratich in Buckland on December 18, 2020. (Courtesy Christina Fields / Maniilaq)
State officials acknowledged that the pace and process of coronavirus vaccination in the state has been slower and unstable than they expected. They say it can take the entire month of February just to go through the categories of people who are open for the vaccine now: health professionals, health centers and that large group of people aged 65 and over.
The state also faces difficult decisions about who will be next.
Authorities said last week that they are considering changing teachers as schools return to face-to-face learning. Other groups, including the seafood and transportation industries, are pushing for prioritization in future levels of vaccination, a large demographic group that includes inmates and people staying in shelters, as well as people with underlying health problems.
A key factor that puts Alaska ahead of other states in terms of vaccine distribution is the high number of vaccinations for the Indigenous Health Service – almost 37,000 doses so far for the state’s 229 sovereign tribes, in addition to the per capita quota of 78,000.
Zink told reporters at a recent briefing that Alaska is probably the only one to include a large number of doses provided by IHS in statewide vaccination counts and per capita calculations.
Almost all other states with access to tribal vaccine allocations have chosen to distribute that vaccine through federal channels rather than state channels, explained Zink. Therefore, these numbers are not included in state-by-state counts in the same way as those in Alaska.
Tanya Salmon, community health advisor to the Southcentral Foundation in Igiugig, is vaccinated against COVID-19 in Iliamna on Tuesday, January 5, 2021. (Photo by the Southcentral Foundation)
Health officials here, however, cannot say how many of the vaccinations completed so far have been doses from the Indian Health Services.
“This is a really difficult number to track,” said Matt Bobo, director of the state’s immunization program, on Thursday.
The state database that collects information from vaccine providers does not specify whether it comes from Indian Health Services, said Bobo.
In general, tribal health organizations have managed to move faster in their vaccine shipments.
As of this month, in Bethel and neighboring villages in the Yukon-Kuskokwim region, anyone aged 16 and over has become eligible for vaccination. On Friday morning, the region’s health corporation vaccinated 5,233 people with at least one dose of the vaccine – about a fifth of the region’s population.
The Maniilaq Association, a tribal health organization serving nearly 8,000 people in northwest Alaska, has so far vaccinated more than 1,700 people with its first dose of the vaccine and administered more than 800 second doses by Wednesday, the spokeswoman said. Kelli Shroyer.
Several teams are traveling on charter flights to different villages in the region to administer the vaccines.
Vietnam veteran Walter Petru, 72, receives his first dose of the Modern COVID-19 vaccine from practical nurse Samantha Burak at Anchorage Veterans Affairs Medical Center on Saturday, January 23, 2021. (Loren Holmes / DNA)
Another reason for Alaska’s higher vaccination rate is that, in December, key state health officials chose to receive the vaccine in monthly batches, which means that the vaccine can be administered more quickly than other states, which receive their vaccines. vaccine shipments weekly.
Tessa Walker Linderman, who helps manage the state’s vaccination task force, said the schedule may partially explain why Alaska is ahead. The choice of receiving monthly, rather than weekly, shipments was to facilitate distribution planning for small and distant villages, she explained.
“By getting the vaccine in advance, we can look at areas across the state where, if we had to ship weekly, we wouldn’t be able to use an entire tray of Pfizer or an entire box of Moderna,” she explained. As a result, these communities have access to more vaccines earlier.
Alaska’s large military presence has also influenced the amount of vaccine that reaches the state. Alaska has the highest number of veterans per capita in the country. The US Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs in Alaska received separate federal distributions of vaccines.
The health system of Alaskan veterans has received 2,300 vaccines and has so far administered 1,600, said Dr. Roger Bunch, head of the Alaska VA pharmacy service, on Thursday. Vaccines are being distributed to clinics across Alaska.
It is unclear how much vaccine is arriving in Alaska through the Department of Defense for members of the active service. A military spokesman said the exact number is not public information, but noted that the CDC includes that number as part of its total allocation in each state.
The number of doses actually administered to active military and veterans is not monitored by the state, nor are they included in the per capita calculation, said Zink.
Herbert Worthley received his vaccine at a VA clinic in Anchorage on Saturday morning.
World War II veteran Herbert Worthley, 94, reacts after receiving his first dose of the Modern COVID-19 vaccine from nurse Geri Finn at the Anchorage Veterans Affairs Medical Center on Saturday, January 23, 2021. (Loren Holmes / DNA)
The 94-year-old World War II veteran said he is looking forward to traveling again. Worthley would like to visit his older brothers, 99 and 97 years old.
He is also eager to be less hermit and return to his normal exercise: gang.
“I was dancing three nights a week and it happened and there was no more dancing,” said Worthley.
State officials hope to hear how much vaccine Alaska is due to receive in February this week.
Daily News reporters Zaz Hollander and Morgan Krakow contributed.