As delta variant spreads, health care workers implore residents to vaccinate

A surge in newly diagnosed cases of the novel coronavirus in Alaska, where the highly infectious delta variant is having an impact, has state health care workers pleading with residents to get vaccinated, mask up, socially distance and avoid crowds.

The percentage of Alaskans who are fully vaccinated remains at 52%.

The newly vaccinated should be patient as the vaccine teaches their bodies how to build a strong immune response to the virus, said Dr. Anne Zink, the state’s chief medical officer, during a weekly Zoom meeting in which the medical team answers questions from the public.

Consider masking indoors even if vaccinated, said Zink, who compared the precaution of masking to putting on a seat belt before riding in a motor vehicle. Zink noted that at present 97% of all deaths in Alaska from COVID-19 were among unvaccinated individuals, as are 94% of hospitalizations.

Again, the health team urged anyone, vaccinated or not, to get tested for the virus if they had been in contact with someone who had tested positive. Those who test positive need to isolate, whether vaccinated or not, they said. Vaccinated people who find themselves exposed to someone who has COVID-19, but who have no symptoms themselves, should monitor themselves for 14 days for symptoms of the virus, and get tested if symptoms should appear, health team members said.

Since the incubation period for the delta variant is much shorter, anyone who thinks they were exposed to someone infected with the delta variant should get tested within three to five days, said Dr. Joe McLaughlin, the state’s chief epidemiologist. McLaughlin also urged everyone listening in on the Zoom update to nudge friends and relatives who have not been vaccinated to talk to a health care provider to get more information about the vaccines or other issues which are compelling them to avoid vaccinating, “because they continue to drive the pandemic,” he said.

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The health team also noted that with the rise of several hundred cases of the virus in Alaska every week now that Anchorage hospitals were back under the same stresses as when the pandemic first surged in Alaska. Hospital administrators, already dealing with staff shortages and an influx of patients who tested positive for COVID-19, are cancelling elective surgeries again, as they did last spring for several weeks.

As of Wednesday, July 26, data compiled by the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services showed that 74,911 people in Alaska have tested positive for the virus, including

71,757 residents and 3,154 nonresidents. A total of 1,784 people have been hospitalized, including 94 current patients, and 386 people have succumbed to the virus, including 379 residents and seven nonresidents.

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