Health

On Feb. 8, Gov. Mike Dunleavy issued a disaster declaration for the village of Tuluksak. The declaration comes nearly a month after a fire destroyed the village’s only source of drinking water. In the interim, residents of Tuluksak have been mostly drinking bottled water donated by private citizens and businesses. 

A second location in Bethel is offering the COVID-19 vaccine. Bethel Family Clinic received 150 doses of the Pfizer vaccine on Feb. 2 and is currently accepting appointments. The clinic is now offering PCR tests for COVID-19 as well, and said that that those test results can come back within 48 hours. 

COVID-19 took one of the Y-K Delta mushing community’s most beloved and helpful members, and a family’s loving father. The space left by Joe Demantle Jr. will be difficult to fill, but at times during the 2021 Bogus Creek 150 weekend, people said that it felt like he was still there. 

Yukon-Kuskokwim Elder’s Home resident Xenia Jackson was one of the first people in the Y-K Delta to receive a COVID-19 vaccine in December 2020. The shot capped off a tumultuous year in which she tested positive for COVID-19.

On Jan. 16, a fire in Tuluksak destroyed the village’s washeteria and water plant building, which was their only source of clean, running water. The Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation hosted a meeting for a number of local, state, and federal agencies to address the crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic is just one of several complicating factors. 

Nearly 5,000 people in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta have received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, and almost a fifth of those people have also received their second dose. That makes more people in the region who have received at least one dose of the vaccine than have tested positive for the virus. Across the region, 4,248 people have tested positive for COVID-19 as of Jan. 20, according to the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation.

At the end of 2020, a 36-year-old former tribal police officer died from COVID-19. He was to be buried in Kongiganak, a burial which his family in Akiachak couldn’t attend because of travel restrictions. Here’s a story about how people are finding new ways to say goodbye to their loved ones during the pandemic.

The Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation opened eligibility for the COVID-19 vaccine to the general population in the entire Y-K Delta on Jan. 19. KYUK reporter Greg Kim documented his experience of getting the vaccine, while talking to others who also received it.