Alaska Rises to No.1 among States for Per Capita Coronavirus Vaccinations

Last week, Alaska administered more COVID-19 vaccines per capita than any other state in the country, a striking statistic given the challenge of getting the vaccine across rugged terrain with no roads to communities far from alone. Arctic state of the country.

Still, the Alaskan deployment hit some tough spots, especially for the elderly. And Alaska’s rank is not as high for shots administered out of total received, where the state sits closer to the middle of the national table, according to CDC data.

West Virginia, which relied on the National Guard and most local pharmacies to help administer the vaccine, had used 83% of its vaccine on Sunday and previously held the top spot for most residents vaccinated per capita.

As of Monday, at least one dose of the vaccine had fallen into the arms of 80,300 Alaskans, and nearly 18,000 had received two doses. This means that just under 70% of the total vaccines the state received in December and January had so far been used. This number does not include doses administered by the Department of Defense or the Alaskan Veterans System.

Health officials here say a number of factors have helped push Alaska at least temporarily at the top of the list in terms of vaccine doses administered per capita nationwide through January, according to a CDC monitoring.

On the one hand, Alaska received a high number of doses through the Indian Health Service for distribution by tribal health organizations on faster delivery times. In some rural communities, adolescents are already getting vaccinated.

Health officials here also decided to make Alaska the only state to receive monthly – rather than weekly – shipments of vaccines, which they said increased the efficiency and predictable supplies of the process.

There are also many entities in Alaska that are getting vaccinated, State Chief Medical Officer Dr Anne Zink said last week. Dose shipments specifically intended for veterans and members of the military mean more vaccines are being distributed overall, although the CDC does not monitor those in the state’s total administered doses.

State officials say another reason for Alaska’s success is that declining COVID-19 cases have allowed public health officials and healthcare providers to spend most of their energy to quickly distribute the vaccine, a trend seen across the country in states with no increase in numbers.

Coronavirus infections in Alaska have declined over the past month following a surge in November and early December. Hospitalizations were less than a third of the numbers seen during the fall and winter on Friday, and test positivity had risen from a high of 9% in November to just over 3%.

Alaska’s rank is also relative: other states are really struggling to release the vaccine. In Florida, vaccine websites have collapsed, call centers have been overwhelmed, and many eligible people have been turned away due to limited supply. In California, supply chain bottlenecks, limited federal councils and depleted resources have led to one of the slowest vaccine deployments in the country.

Zink defended Alaska’s vaccine status on Twitter last week, pointing out that more people are vaccinated now than have been diagnosed with the virus since the pandemic hit Alaska in March.

“We’ve seen vaccines come out on helicopters, (planes), cars, dog sleds and ferries,” Zink wrote. “We have seen vaccination sites by car, boat, foot or snow machine. We have seen vaccines hand-delivered to homes, nursing homes, workplaces and hospital workers on duty. “

She immediately took heat from people unable to get vaccinated.

The deployment of the state has not gone smoothly. Immediately, problems arose – as they did across the country – getting the vaccine into long-term care facilities. Some health workers refused to be vaccinated.

Then frustration and confusion followed an accelerated eligibility period for those over 65 in early January. The interest crush passed most appointments in less than an hour and outstripped the state’s vaccine supply.

State officials have acknowledged that the pace and process of vaccination against the coronavirus in the state has been slower and more volatile than they had hoped. They say it could take the whole month of February just to get through the categories of people who are currently open to the vaccine: health workers, health centers and that large group of people 65 and over.

The state is also faced with difficult decisions about the next one.

Officials last week said they plan to advance teachers as schools return to in-person learning. Other groups, including the seafood and transportation industries, are pushing for priorities to be set in future immunization levels, a large demographic 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 allocation is the high number of vaccinations designated for the Indian Health Service – so far nearly 37,000 doses for the 229 sovereign tribes in the state in addition to the per capita allocation of 78,000.

Zink told reporters in a recent briefing that Alaska is likely unique in that it includes a high number of doses provided by IHS in the statewide immunization count and calculation. per inhabitant.

Almost all other states with access to tribal vaccine allocations have chosen to distribute this vaccine through federal channels rather than states, Zink explained. So these numbers are not included in the state-by-state calculation like Alaska is.

Health officials here, however, cannot say how many vaccinations performed so far have been doses from the Indian health services.

“It’s a really hard number for us to track,” said Matt Bobo, director of the state’s immunization program, on Thursday.

The state database that collects information from vaccine suppliers does not specify whether it comes from Indian health services, Bobo said.

Overall, tribal health organizations were able to ship vaccines faster.

Starting this month, in Bethel and surrounding villages in the Yukon-Kuskokwim region, anyone 16 years of age and over has become eligible for vaccination. As of Friday morning, the region’s health company had 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 that serves around 8,000 people in northwest Alaska, had so far vaccinated more than 1,700 people with their first dose of the vaccine and administered more than 800 second doses on Wednesday, spokeswoman Kelli Shroyer said.

Several teams travel by charter flight to different villages in the region to administer the vaccines.

Another reason for Alaska’s higher vaccination rate is that in December, top state health officials chose to receive the vaccine in monthly batches, which means it can potentially deliver this vaccine faster. than other states, which receive their vaccine shipments every week.

Tessa Walker Linderman, who helps lead the state’s vaccine task force, said the timeline may be part of the reason why Alaska is ahead. The choice to receive monthly rather than weekly shipments was to facilitate the planning of distribution to small remote villages, she explained.

“By getting the vaccine up front, we are able to look at areas of the state where, if we had to ship every week, we might not be able to use an entire tray of Pfizer or an entire box of Moderna,” at -she explains. As a result, these communities have access to more vaccines earlier.

Alaska’s strong military presence also took into account the amount of vaccine arriving in the state. Alaska has the most veterans per capita in the country. The US Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs in Alaska both received separate federal vaccine allocations.

Alaska’s veterans health system has received 2,300 vaccines and administered 1,600 so far, said Dr. Roger Bunch, chief of the Alaska VA pharmacy department, on Thursday. The vaccines are distributed at clinics across Alaska.

It is not known exactly how much of the vaccine arrives in Alaska via the Department of Defense to active duty members. A military spokesperson said the exact number was not public information, but noted that the CDC included that number in its total state-by-state allocation.

The number of doses actually administered to serving military personnel and veterans is not tracked by the state or included in the per capita calculation, Zink said.

Herbert Worthley received his vaccine at a VA clinic in Anchorage on Saturday morning.

The 94-year-old World War II veteran said he was looking forward to traveling again. Worthley would like to visit his older brothers, aged 99 and 97.

He is also anxious to be less a hermit and to resume his normal exercise: square dancing.

“I was dancing three nights a week and this stuff would happen and I didn’t dance anymore,” Worthley said.

State officials expect to know how much vaccine Alaska is expected to receive in February of this week.

Daily News reporters Zaz Hollander and Morgan Krakow contributed.