Dr. Anne Zink, Alaska's chief medical officer, called in to a special meeting of the Wrangell Borough Assembly last Friday afternoon, Dec. 18, to give a brief update on the COVID-19 situation across the state. In her update she said that she is "cautiously optimistic" about the future, with vaccinations being rolled out and a slowdown in rising case numbers.
"Across the state, as a whole, we're starting to see a tentative decline in the acceleration, which has been fantastic," she said. "We are cautiously optimistic, I guess is how I would phrase it, about the numbers."
Their optimism is only cautious, Zink said, because they know that COVID-19 is highly contagious and the rate of new cases could start accelerating again. There are several factors as to why the virus has been difficult to control, she said. For one thing, there is a long incubation period for the virus. She also said that while a subset of patients will become very sick from COVID-19, others will be asymptomatic or only show mild symptoms. However, she said that mitigation efforts like wearing masks and social distancing work. The recent rollout of the Pfizer vaccine has also been important in efforts to bring the pandemic to a close.
"This has been long, this has been hard, and I don't think this has been easy on anyone," Zink said. "The good thing is I do think that we're entering kind of our final chapter in COVID. It's a long chapter, it's going to be a bit before it's done, but it's a big turning point this week."
On the topic of the vaccine, Zink said that it has appeared to be effective so far. About 95 percent of people who receive both doses of the vaccine are protected from symptomatic disease, she said. However, there are some uncertainties she pointed out. As of right now they are not sure if someone who receives the vaccine could still spread COVID-19 to others, but she said they hope to figure that out soon. The vaccine has not yet been studied in children, but they know children generally handle COVID-19 better than adults. A few Alaskans have had adverse reactions to the vaccine and Zink said officials are looking into the cause behind the reactions. To put that into perspective, though, she said that those few who had adverse reactions are recovering well, meanwhile in the United States about one person per minute is dying of COVID-19.
"It's important to note that no vaccine is perfect," Zink said. "It doesn't make you immune, so I would not go working in a COVID unit post-vaccine without a mask and protection, as well."
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