During the surge, all city committee and commission meetings will be held virtually. Plus, the Bethel City Council could soon vote to make its meetings virtual as well.

The Bethel City Council voted to adopt virtual and phone public testimony as a permanent element of its meetings. The council also rejected two proposals by council member Mary "Beth" Hessler. The first one would have given the council more oversight over the Bethel City Manager’s personnel policies, and the second would have overturned the city’s vaccine mandate for employees.

“Holy cow. You should see the amount of traffic. Sometimes in the day in the Bethel area it's comparable to the Glenn Highway around Anchorage,” Leary said. “People loading up with groceries, I see people with new appliances, new furniture, cases of tissue. The stores in Bethel been feeling it. The shelves are pretty empty. The ice road is open.”

Last summer, the Lower Kuskokwim School District began building the foundation for a new school in Napakiak. But in June, the district suddenly halted work.

For the second week in a row, newly announced cases in the region climbed, this week by 74%. This follows the confirmation of the presence of the omicron variant in the Y-K Delta by state epidemiologists on Jan. 7.

LKSD Superintendent Kimberly Hankins wrote in an email on Jan. 10 that about 25 staff had yet to return to the Y-K Delta because their flights were canceled or delayed.