Omicron causes record infection surge

By Peter Loewi
The Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is surging through the region, causing record infection numbers.
“We expect the month of February to be a rough month with a lot of cases, that’s the trend,” said Dr. Mark Peterson, medical director at the Norton Sound Health Corporation.
On Friday, January 21, the region saw a record of 301 active COVID cases, and on Monday, January 24, there were a record 143 new cases.
As of press time on Tuesday night, there were 297 active cases in the region: 119 in Nome, 49 in Unalakleet, 38 in Gambell, 22 in Shishmaref, 15 in Elim, 14 in St. Michael, 12 in Savoonga, nine in Brevig, six in Golovin, six in Koyuk, three in Stebbins, three in Shaktoolik and one in Diomede.
Here is the week in numbers: Norton Sound Health Corporation identified 89, a single day record high number of COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, January 18. 46 cases were in Nome, 14 in Shishmaref, nine in St. Michael, seven in Savoonga, six in Elim, four in Unalakleet, two in Brevig, and one in Wales. This brought the number of active cases in the region to 201.
On Wednesday, January 19, another record high number of COVID-19 cases was indentified for the second day in a row, with 94 cases. These new cases were found in the nine communities: 38 were in Nome, 27 were in Unalakleet, 16 in Shishmaref, seven in Elim, two in Brevig Mission, and Koyuk, St. Michael, Savoonga, and Stebbins each had one.
On Thursday, January 20, NSHC identified 80 new COVID-19 cases. It wasn’t another new record, but it wasn’t far off. Nome had 30 cases, Unalakleet had 15, Gambell had 11, Shishmaref had 11, Koyuk had four, St. Michael had three, Elim had two, and Diomede, Golovin, Savoonga, and Shaktoolik each had one case. In addition, Gambell had four cases identified on Jan. 19 that were not previously reported. This brough the number of active cases to 301 in the region, as NSHC reported on Friday.
Over the weekend, NSHC identified 145 new cases in the region: 72 were in Nome, 17 were in Shishmaref, 16 were in Unalakleet, 13 were in Gambell, nine were in Brevig Mission, seven were in Elim, six were in St. Michael, three were in Stebbins, and one each in Golovin and Shaktoolik. The majority of cases identified are close contacts to previously identified cases or community spread.
On Monday, January 24, NSHC identified 143 new cases. 38 were in Nome, 31 in Unalakleet, 18 in Gambell, 15 in Elim, 11 in Savoonga, 10 in St. Michael, nine in Shishmaref, five in Golovin, three in Koyuk, two in Shaktoolik, and one in Brevig.
Overall, the seven-day average of new cases in the United States appears to have peaked for now, but Alaska is still not seeing a clear downward trend. Although case numbers in Alaska were decreasing for a few days, they spiked again sharply over the weekend.
Another phenomenon occurring in the Lower 48 is that people think it is safe to intentionally catch COVID and “get it over with.” Dr. Peterson said he didn’t encourage people to do this.
Dr. Robert Murphy, executive director of the Havey Institute for Global Health at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, used somewhat stronger words when talking to CNN: “You’d be crazy to try to get infected with this. It’s like playing with dynamite.”
People are still getting sick and dying from Omicron, and the Norton Sound Regional Hospital has seen an increase in hospitalizations since this highly transmissible variant arrived. Dr. Peterson also said that everyone getting sick at the same time would overwhelm the health system. Even if patients don’t get hospitalized, they can still spread the disease to a child or elder who might get the life-threatening disease. There is also the potential for long COVID, a medical condition that is still being studied, but can result in debilitating consequences. Since the virus and disease are so new, how immune people might actually become is still being studied, as well.
What the medical experts all agree on, however, is that one should not intentionally try to contract COVID.
In the region, the surge caused communities to mandate indoor masking and even schools were closed. On January 19, the Koyuk Malimiut School, began requiring masks for all students and staff for two weeks due to a case which appears not to have been travel related.
One day later at a special session, the Unalakleet City Council passed an emergency ordinance requiring the wearing of face coverings in all indoor public places. The ordinance passed with five votes for, no votes against, and two absent votes.
Later that day, Unalakleet schools released early and switched to distance delivery due to staff shortages due to COVID-19 and had not yet switched back to in-person learning as of press time.
The Gambell School switched to distance learning at the start of this week citing rising COVID cases and was still remote as of press time.
During the COVID Tribal Leaders’ call on Monday, January 24, in addition to the regional case numbers, Physician Assistant at the Norton Sound Regional Hospital Megan Mackiernan held a presentation on the naming of variants.
The name of the virus is SARS-CoV-2, which stands for the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2. It is the second known coronavirus causing serious problems to the parts of the body which allow a person to breathe. SARS-CoV-2 causes COVID-19, the coronavirus disease first identified in 2019.
Mackiernan explained that the first time a virus is discovered, it is known as the “wild type.” Every time that a virus infects someone and replicates, there is a chance of mutation, and as the virus infects more and more people, there are more chances for replication and mutation. In 2020, this led to what was called “the UK variant,” “the South Africa variant,” or the “Brazil variant,” based on where the mutations were first sequenced. Inappropriately calling it “the China Virus,” as former president Donald Trump did, however, has led a rise in anti-Asian hate crimes around the world. South Africa, for example, has some of the best virus genomic sequencing capabilities in the world, and were simply the first to identify the Omicron variant, not necessarily the place it is from.
Instead of using the place name where the virus first emerged, and instead of using the long string of letters and numbers used at the start of the pandemic, like B.1.1.7, B.1.617.2, scientists now use the Greek alphabet. After the wild type came the Alpha variant, then the Beta variant, and the Gamma variant (formerly known as the UK variant, South African variant and the Brazilian variant, respectively.) Next, the Delta variant was first identified in India.
But not all of the variants pose the same threat, and many are replaced by more efficient mutations. The Epsilon, Eta, Theta, Iota, Kappa, Lambda, and Mu variants are mutated somewhere in the world, both another variant was more efficient at spreading, so they faded away, just like the ones before. The letter Nu was skipped because scientists were afraid it would cause confusion with Mu, and Xi was skipped because it is a common last name. That meant that the next letter was Omicron.
While we don’t know what will happen after this wave, a university in France has identified what could become the Pi variant.
The best way to prevent the virus from mutating is to prevent the virus from having opportunities to spread. Don’t go out if you are feeling unwell, wear a well-fitting mask, wash your hands, and get vaccinated.
Said Dr. Peterson, “There is good news coming, we’re hoping by the end of February. Hang in there.”
As of afternoon on Monday, January 24, 2022, the nation had totaled 71,532,856 cases of COVID-19 and 868,247 deaths from the disease since the pandemic started in March 2020.
Alaska had seen 194,176 cases, 3,400 hospitalizations and 1,039 deaths. Currently there are 160 patients hospitalized with COVID-related illness, six of these patients are on ventilators.
In Nome, Norton Sound and the Bering Strait region, there have been 3,292 cases, at least 35 hospitalizations, and three known deaths.