Health officials continue to sound the alarm about the surge in COVID-19 cases across the country and in Alaska.“The original COVID could infect one person, can infect two to three people. This version of the virus can infect between five and eight individuals,” Dr. Elizabeth Bates, Director of Infection Control at the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation, said on Alaska Public Media’s "Talk of Alaska" on Aug. 8 about the highly contagious delta variant of COVID-19.
“The other thing that we're seeing with the delta variant is there's more risk of severe disease, particularly unvaccinated individuals, so there's more risk of hospitalization and death,” Bates said.
Bates said that 24% of COVID-19 cases in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta have been breakthrough cases. Those are people who test positive for the virus after being fully vaccinated. But she says they're less likely to experience symptoms, require hospitalization, or die from the virus. It's unclear how infectious breakthrough cases are, and unvaccinated people are more of a concern right now.
Bates said that YKHC recently saw its first COVID-19 death in four months, and is seeing COVID-19 patients as young as 10 months old and as old as 89. She encouraged eligible people to get vaccinated as a way to help protect vulnerable populations and manage hospital capacity.
Recent CDC data shows that being fully vaccinated reduces a person's risk of getting sick by eight times. "So, it reduces your risk eight fold if you're exposed. That's not 100%. So there is still some risk. And as I described, we do see bright breakthrough cases in our region. But as I said, it's almost 100% effective at preventing severe illness, and deaths," Bates said.
Bates said that a significant challenge to the vaccination effort is ongoing misinformation and mistrust of the medical community. She said that the vaccine is safe.
“This is built on 25 years of data, and trials with other SARS viruses, and mRNA technology. So I don't, wouldn't consider it experimental at all. I would consider this sort of established science,” Bates said.
Bates said that at this point, dying from COVID-19 is avoidable thanks to the vaccine.
Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that being fully vaccinated against COVID-19 reduces a person's risk of getting sick by eight times, not 800 times.
