Credit Loren Holmes / ADN
The Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation has nearly completed the first phase of COVID-19 vaccinations. That included frontline health care workers and residents and staff of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Elder’s home in Bethel. YKHC will now begin to vaccinate Elders ages 65 and older, and frontline essential workers.
Bethel Elders can call YKHC’s COVID-19 hotline at 907-543-6949 to schedule a vaccination appointment. The health corporation will reach out to village-based Elders directly.
Frontline essential workers are defined by YKHC as individuals working in the following roles:
Corrections officers
Grocery/convenience stores
In the Y-K Delta, frontline health workers and the residents and staff at the Yukon-Kuskokwim Elder’s home were the first to receive COVID-19 vaccines. This involved chartering planes to fly doses to villages, and vaccinating health aides on vilage runways. YKHC Chief of Staff Dr. Ellen Hodges said that phase 1a of the vaccinations would be complete by Dec. 23.
“We just received this vaccine six days ago, and we have been able to vaccinate over 180 healthcare providers in 37 different villages. And it s just to me, when I think about this, is an astonishing accomplishment,” Hodges said.
With both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines coming to market in under a year, some may be concerned about safety. Dr. Larry Corey, Co-Director of the Fred Hutchinson COVID-19 Prevention Network, said that government funding helped develop and test the vaccines in such a short period of time, but he said that no corners were cut in the approval process.
Hear the radio version of this story.
Standing in the terminal, the plane is running slightly behind schedule. Passengers are wearing their masks and lined up, not quite 6 feet apart, to board the plane once it’s unloaded. One of those passengers is Connie Sankwich. She said that she’s ready to take the vaccine as soon as possible.
“I’m a cancer survivor, and I have complications as a result of chemo,” Sankwich said. “In fact, I’m going in for a doctor’s appointment tonight.”
Further down the line, another passenger, Chris Aparicio, is also ready to take the vaccine.
Credit Jeff Chen / Alaska Public Media
The region’s first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine arrived in Bethel on Dec. 16, and vaccinations will begin on Dec. 17.
The first vaccine landed in Bethel on the afternoon jet. Pfizer sent the shipment to the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation through UPS, according to YKHC spokesperson Tiffany Zulkosky. The health corporation expects to receive two more packages of the vaccine on the evening jet. These additional vaccines come from the state through an Indian Health Service allocation. In total, YKHC expects to receive 2,925 doses of the Pfizer vaccine on Dec. 16.
The health corporation is using an ultra-cold freezer borrowed from the UAF Kuskokwim Campus to store the vaccine at the required temperature of -94 degrees Fahrenheit.
Credit Katie Basile / KYUK
It was a welcome surprise when the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation received nearly three times as many COVID-19 vaccine doses as it had expected.
On Dec. 16, YKHC received a shipment of 2,925 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine from the State of Alaska and the Indian Health Service. As of Dec. 11, the health corporation had been expecting just 1,000 doses in its initial allocation. This will speed up plans for distribution of the vaccine.
On Dec. 17, YKHC began COVID-19 vaccinations of frontline health care workers in Bethel, as well as residents and staff of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Elder’s Home in Bethel. On Dec. 18, YKHC will charter flights to begin vaccinating village-based health care workers. These flights, as part of Operation Togo, will continue into the following week. Over the next few weeks, YKHC will vaccinate all eligible health care workers in the Y-K Delta.