While Wrangell experienced a small outbreak of community-spread cases over the weekend, Alaska continues to lead the nation in new COVID-19 cases per capita.
The state health department reported more than 2,400 new cases Friday through Monday, continuing Alaska’s ranking at the top of cases per resident nationwide.
In Wrangell, the borough reported 11 new cases Saturday through Tuesday, a majority of which were community spread and mostly linked to attendees at a memorial service Oct. 19.
The 11 cases came after a lull during the first 22 days of October, when Wrangell reported just two new infections.
Nicole Webster posted on the community Facebook page Sunday that she, her partner and two children had tested positive for COVID. They and other family members who also later tested positive had attended a memorial service for Webster’s uncle, Mel Bjorge, on Oct. 19 at the Assembly of God Church.
“I’m posting on here in hopes that anyone that had contact with us over the last week or so will get tested to help stop the spread,” Webster wrote.
“None of us knew we were sick,” she said in an interview on Monday. “I don’t recall being around anyone sick. … We thought it was a cold.”
Webster, 30, described herself as a “homebody” of late, not going out much — she is pregnant with twins, and is scheduled to travel to Anchorage to give birth the second week of November.
Neither she nor her partner, Justin Churchill, are vaccinated, Webster said, explaining that she did not feel comfortable getting the shot while pregnant — but that she will consider getting vaccinated after the twins are born.
But she cautioned on Monday, “Even people who are vaccinated can get it,” advising residents to get tested to help ensure no one spreads the virus. “Nobody wants the guilt” of infecting others, she said.
Webster believes she had COVID-19 before family gathered for the memorial service, though she did not know it. After her mom’s cousin, who had traveled to Wrangell from Anchorage for the service, tested positive for the Coronavirus, Webster went to the Wrangell Medical Center to get tested, too.
Her sister, mother and father, all from Willow, north of Anchorage, also tested positive, she said, as did a couple of relatives in Wrangell who were at the service.
Many of the 15 to 20 people who attended the service had not tested positive as of Monday.
In an effort to inform the community, Webster’s Facebook posting continued: “Places that we had exposure to include The Stikine, The Marine, City Market, IGA, Alpine Mini Mart, both hardware stores,” in addition to the church.
Her children attended the chamber of commerce’s Pumpkin Patch activities on Saturday, before the family learned of the first case and got tested.
The chamber of commerce posted on Facebook that it considered the Pumpkin Patch low risk, “because the event was outdoors," but cautioned people to “please keep an eye out for any symptoms in your households.”
“We are all feeling pretty good,” Webster said as the family continued their recovery on Monday. Her children are 5 and 7 years old.
It’s not yet clear if the state has peaked in this latest surge, which has resulted in more than 25,000 cases in the past 30 days, said Jared Kosin, president and CEO of the Alaska State Hospital and Nursing Home Association.
The case count in the past 30 days represents almost 20% of all the COVID-19 infections reported in Alaska since the tally started 20 months ago.
“It’s not letting up and I think that’s the hardest part with this,” Kosin said. “It’s not like you can see hope on the horizon, you know we’re going to see a rapid decline and get through it. It just seems to come and go, and when it comes it hits really hard.”
Hospitalizations have been at record highs, with 234 patients across Alaska as of Tuesday.
The death total related to COVID-19 was at 714 as of Tuesday, according to state health officials, counting residents and non-residents.
Among the hardest-hit areas is the Kenai Peninsula, where the hospital in Soldotna has reported 30 COVID-19 deaths since the pandemic began in March 2020 — more than one-third of those this month.
“It’s the deadliest month we’ve had,” Bruce Richards, external affairs director at Central Peninsula Hospital, told the Peninsula Clarion newspaper.
In addition to record-breaking deaths, the facility had 31 hospitalized COVID patients Monday morning — 28 of them unvaccinated. “This is the most COVID patients the hospital has ever seen in a single day,” Richards said.
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