The COVID-19 case count in Wrangell dropped last week to less than half the number of the previous week, but the infection numbers for cruise ship travelers to Alaska was double the rate of the previous four weeks.
A highly infectious variant of the Coronavirus is pushing up case counts in Alaska and nationwide, though illnesses are not as severe and hospitalization rates much lower than in previous waves, state and federal health officials report.
The state’s Coronavirus data dashboard reported 21 new cases in Wrangell for the seven days ending July 20, down from 46 in the prior seven days. The community’s total is 734 reported infections since the pandemic count started in March 2020, though state health officials acknowledge that the increased use of at-home tests means many cases are not reported.
While new infections reported in Wrangell have declined, cases among cruise ship and tour boat travelers to Alaska were at their highest level all summer.
The state on July 20 said 1,021 infections were reported over the past seven days among non-residents in Alaska “at-sea, purpose tourism.” That is more than double the weekly count of at-sea non-resident cases, which averaged 483 per week from mid-June to mid-July.
The increase in cases among visitors has not been limited to ship passengers and crew. More than 370 infections were reported in the past month among non-resident tourists in the Denali Borough, which includes hotels and shops serving Denali National Park and Preserve, according to the state’s July 20 web posting.
In Skagway, one of the most heavily visited tourism destinations in Southeast, 11 of 14 cases reported last week were among non-resident travelers, the state Health Department reported.
In Valdez, 31 of 35 infections reported July 20 were among non-residents in town for the seafood industry.
Alaska’s seven-day case rate among residents, based only on reported test results and not at-home tests, shows that most regions of the state were seeing higher levels of virus spread. Alaska’s seven-day per-capita case rate was fifth-highest among U.S. states as of July 21, according to a federal tracker website.
Meanwhile, a program run by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to provide information about COVID levels aboard cruise ships has ended. The CDC the past two years actively monitored outbreaks on cruise ships, using a color-coded chart to show the public the varying levels of transmission.
The agency said it decided to end the tracking program for cruises in part because it believes the industry is capable of managing the risks on its own.
“There is no doubt COVID is aboard cruise ships, just as there is COVID spreading locally and abroad. We don’t have a way to determine if local COVID is being driven by ship traffic or the reverse,” Juneau Deputy City Manager Robert Barr told the Juneau Empire last week.
The industry has been in the spotlight since the beginning of the pandemic, including several high-profile instances of infection clusters before the advent of vaccines and effective quarantine policies.
The number of passengers booking cruises crashed over the past two years. In 2020 and 2021, cruise companies lost a collective $63 billion and shed thousands of jobs, according to industry data.
“CDC has determined that the cruise industry has access to the necessary tools (e.g., cruise-specific recommendations and guidance, vaccinations, testing instruments, treatment modalities and non-pharmaceutical interventions) to prevent and mitigate COVID-19 on board,” an agency spokesperson said in a statement to CBS News. “Therefore, CDC’s COVID-19 program for cruise ships is no longer in effect as of today (July 18).”
Individual cruise lines may set their own policies, such as travel requirements for passengers and staff, as well as what protocols are implemented aboard ships.
The Juneau Empire contributed to this report.
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