Wrangell marked two milestones in the fight against COVID-19 in November: The first death attributed to the highly infectious disease in the community, and a record number of new infections.
The borough on Monday reported the death. To protect the individual and family privacy, neither the borough nor the state releases the name, specific age or day of death of the person, though the state reported the individual was a Wrangell man in his 60s.
The state health department website only lists the death as occurring sometime in the past 30 days.
The statewide death toll was at 880 as of Tuesday. That includes three people in Petersburg, 13 in Ketchikan, six from Prince of Wales Island communities, 14 in Juneau, five from Sitka and three people total in Angoon, Hoonah and Yakutat.
And while the statewide count of new cases continues to decline after record territory in September — down three-quarters from then to under 300 a day over the past week — Wrangell set a record high in November for COVID-19 cases in a month. The borough reported four new cases on Monday, pushing the November total to 66 — by far the highest monthly count of the almost two-year-long pandemic.
All but one of the 66 cases were Wrangell residents and most were close contacts of recent positive cases.
Of the recent cases in town, the borough reported just 12 were still active as of late Monday afternoon, down from more than 40 a couple of weeks ago as the daily count of new cases subsides and as individuals recover from the disease.
Wrangell has reported 221 COVID cases since the pandemic tally started in March 2020.
Statewide, “our case counts are dropping pretty considerably … which is really good news,” state epidemiologist Dr. Joe McLaughlin said during a news media briefing on Monday.
The numbers are worse in Ketchikan and Petersburg.
The Petersburg borough has reported 557 infections since the start of the pandemic, according to the community's COVID-19 dashboard on Monday. Of those, 213 have come in the past 30 days.
The rate is declining, however. The Petersburg Borough on Monday reported 22 new cases over the past seven days, about one-third the rate of just a week ago.
The Ketchikan Gateway Borough reported 68 new cases between Friday evening and Sunday evening, a record for a two-day count in the community.
As of Tuesday afternoon, 137 cases were active in Ketchikan, with five people hospitalized, according to the borough’s COVID dashboard.
Though Ketchikan, Wrangell and Petersburg comprise about 2.5% of the state’s population, the three communities have counted more than 5% of Alaska’s COVID infections in the past 30 days.
The state’s COVID dashboard shows 11,490 cases across Alaska in the past 30 days, with 610 in Ketchikan, Wrangell and Petersburg — almost three times as many as Juneau during the past 30 days.
Wrangell’s vaccination rate remains the lowest among Southeast boroughs, with the state reporting on Tuesday that 64% of eligible Wrangell residents (ages 5 and older) had received at least their first shot. Petersburg, at 67%, and Ketchikan, at 68%, were the next lowest.
Though better than the statewide average of 61%, the rates in the three southern Southeast communities trail behind Juneau’s 81%, Sitka at 80% and Skagway at 79%.
The national average for people ages 5 and older with at least their first vaccination shot was 75% as of Tuesday, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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