COVID case numbers drop to 48

By Peter Loewi
Two years into the pandemic, Norton Sound Health Corporation is looking to reduce the number of regular Tribal Leader COVID Calls to once-weekly, from the current twice-weekly. While details haven’t been finalized, testing will also move from the Operations Building to the Cough and Cold Clinic inside the Norton Sound Regional hospital. At that time, testing at the airport will stop, too. NHSHC’s Dr. Mark Peterson said that the soonest those changes could happen is April 4, 2022.
As of press time on Tuesday, there are 48 active cases in the region: 28 in Nome, six in St. Michael, four in Shishmaref, two in each Elim, Stebbins, Wales and White Mountain, and one in each Golovin and Unalakleet.
Cases in the region continue to trend down, following a little bump from a month of events, but the nation-wide downward trend is slowing. Many countries whose trajectories the USA has followed throughout the pandemic are seeing rises in cases.
A more contagious variant of Omicron, called BA.2, is responsible for more than a third of the cases nationally, and other variants are always being watched, just as testing and genomic sequencing efforts are sunsetting. Currently using 10 labs for genomic sequencing, the Centers of Disease Control intends to reduce that number to just three in the coming months.
At the start of the Omicron wave, with the rise in the availability of at-home testing, official reporting of cases has changed as positive at-home test results are not officially tracked or documented. A drop in officially reported cases doesn’t necessarily mean that case numbers are lower, and with the CDC’s recent shift to using hospital capacity as a primary metric instead of case rates, things may appear deceptively safe. Using hospital capacity as a measure of the situation has been criticized by some public health experts, because hospitalizations don’t start rising until after the cases, which could delay reaction.
Even as the FDA debates authorizing a second booster to the elderly and immunocompromised, federal funds for COVID response are running out, after Congress stalled on a $22.5 billion request from the Biden Administration. Funding for testing and vaccinated people without insurance will run out in the next several weeks, and shipments of monoclonal antibody treatments were cut by more than a third, said Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra.
City Manager Glen Steckman said in his written report to the Nome Common Council that on March 21 the Unified Command decided it was no longer necessary to meet as the city transitions from pandemic response to treating COVID as an endemic virus. The Unified Command, or Emergency Operations Center with the city manager as Emergency Operations Command, was stood up to deal with the pandemic in March 2020. It included city officials, Fire and Ambulance department volunteers, Dr. Peterson with Norton Sound Health Corporation, Superintendent of Nome Schools Jamie Burgess, Superintendent of AMCC Sandy Martinson, representatives for native corporations and the Dept. of Health and Social Services. Steckman said the body meet at the beginning of the pandemic once a week to discuss actions the city should take to mitigate COVID. The body then met twice a month, then once a month and at their last meeting they decided the time has come to demobilize. “They felt it was no longer necessary and we prepare to transition to an endemic,” said Steckman. The ordinance that gives the city manager emergency authorization to deal swiftly with COVID outbreaks will sunset in April and Steckman sees no need to extend it.
City facilities no longer require face masks, with the exception of the library. “If I see a large outbreak of COVID, over 70 active cases for three days, I would put face mask guidance back in place for the city’s facilities only,” Steckman said. The city provides at home tests and face masks until the fall. “I want to thank city staff, first responders, NSHC, the representatives of the various agencies involved in the Unified Command for their efforts these last 26 months,” Steckman said.
The week in numbers:
On Tuesday, March 22, Norton Sound Health Corporation identified 31 COVID-19. There were 23 in Nome, three in Elim, two in St. Michael, and one each in Golovin, Unalakleet and Wales.
This made for 88 active cases in the region: 62 in Nome, eight in Elim, five in St. Michael, three in Stebbins, three in White Mountain, two in Golovin, two in Wales, and one each in Savoonga, Shishmaref, and Unalakleet.
On Wednesday, March 23, NSHC identified 25 new COVID-19 cases in the region: 15 in Nome, two in each Brevig, Golovin, and White Mountain, and one in each St. Michael, Shishmaref, Stebbins and Teller.
Active cases rose to 94: 66 in Nome, five in each Elim, St. Michael, and White Mountain, three in Golovin, two in each Brevig, Shishmaref, and Wales, and one in each Savoonga, Stebbins, Teller and Unalakleet.
On Thursday, March 24, NSHC identified 23 cases of COVID-19 in the region. There were six in Nome, five in St. Michael, four in Wales, three in Golovin, three in Shishmaref and two in Elim.
Active cases again rose, this time to 105 with 66 in Nome, nine in St. Michael, six in Elim, six in Golovin, four in Shishmaref, four in Wales, four in White Mountain, two in Brevig Mission, and one each in Savoonga, Stebbins, Teller and Unalakleet.
Over the weekend from Friday, March 25 to Sunday, March 27, NSHC identified 26 new cases of COVID-19. 20 were in Nome, three were in St. Michael, and one each were in Brevig Mission, Elim, and Golovin.
This brought active cases in the region down to 58: 35 in Nome, nine in St. Michael, three in Elim, three in Golovin, two in Shishmaref, two in Wales, two in White Mountain, and one each in Brevig and Stebbins.
On Monday, March 28, NSHC identified 22 new cases of COVID-19 in the region. Of the new cases, eight were in Nome, five were in St. Michael, three were in Shishmaref, two were in each of Stebbins and Wales, and one each in Elim and Unalakleet.
Since the start of the pandemic:
The USA has had at least 79,995,485 cases of COVID-19 and 977,687 associated deaths.
Alaska has had 238, 420 cases, 3,737 hospitalizations, and 1,189 deaths. There are currently 35 people hospitalized in the state due to COVID-19.
The Nome, Norton Sound and Bering Strait region has had at least 5,674 cases, 43 hospitalizations and 5 deaths.

 

The Nome Nugget

PO Box 610
Nome, Alaska 99762
USA

Phone: (907) 443-5235
Fax: (907) 443-5112

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