Real time Balto sequel

Years later, Marston wrote in his book,"Men of the Tundra: Alaska Eskimos at War," that the scouts proved helpful in safeguarding terrain around the lend-lease air route, which the United States used to supply aircraft to its Russian ally.

They also secured Platinum, an Alaskan village south of Kwethluk, which was the only source of the strategic metal with the same name in the Western Hemisphere. In addition, he wrote, they stockpiled survival caches along vital transportation routes.

In 2010, the scouts were finally recognized for their efforts and given veteran status when President George W. Bush signed a bill into law, which ordered the defense secretary to issue honorable discharges to the Alaskan natives.

Alaska's Department of Military and Veterans Affairs then set up a task force to notify and assist former members, their families and dependents on how to obtain the benefits entitled to them.

"Our goal is to locate 100 percent of the ATG members, begin correcting the oversight of the past, and allow future generations access to their ancestors' service records," according to the department's website.

Soon after, federal funds were allocated to ensure the actions of the thousands of Alaskans who volunteered to protect the territory would not be forgotten.

As statues and plaques began to be unveiled across the state, a group of U.S. military veterans in nearby Bethel used the funds to build a memorial park to enshrine the ATG veterans in 2012.

"They volunteered, some of them as young as 12, to guard the people of western Alaska. There was no military presence here," said Stanley Rodgers, a former Army sergeant who served in the Vietnam War.

Born and raised in Bethel, Rodgers said he is related to probably 70 former ATG members. Those relatives, he said, would tell him stories of Japanese ships off the Bering Sea coast or of spies who had come ashore.

"Whatever they saw that was not appropriate, they would report it," Rodgers said."Everyone was a sentry."

If the Japanese had invaded, he said, they would have faced heavy resistance in a harsh land."They would have never made it," he said."[The ATG] would have beaten them back."

As he stood next to a statue of an Eskimo Scout overlooking a wall of plaques inside the memorial park, Rodgers said the place is not only to honor what the scouts, like Jackson, did. It can also serve as a reminder of selfless service for generations to come.

"It will be here forever," he said."The people may be gone, but the names will still be there."

Man threatens officers with axe yesterday.

At around 6:00 a.m. on Saturday, Dec. 5, a Bethel Police officer shot a man armed with axes at Alba’s Coffee Shop, according to a press release by the Bethel Police Department.

The man was reportedly taken to the emergency room, where he was treated for a non-life threatening injury. No officers or other citizens were injured. The press release did not include the identity of the man who was shot.

The Bethel Police Department stated that it first received a report of a man outside of the main AC store who was threatening people with an axe. Two police officers responded and located the man at Alba’s Coffee Shop, across the street from AC. Police said that he had two axes, which he threatened the officers with. One officer fired his pistol, striking the man.

The two officers who were on the scene are on routine leave pending an administrative investigation. Bethel police have asked the Alaska Bureau of Investigation to review the shooting. The press release stated that both officers on the scene had body cameras that were activated during the event. The video has been given to the Alaska Bureau of Investigation

Yukon delta readies itself to vaccinate they have 1000 doses.

The first vaccine shipment will include 1,000 doses. Dr. Ellen Hodges, Chief of Staff for the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation, laid out where those doses will go.

“First will be our nursing home residents in our Elder’s Home, the employees who work there and care for those people, and then health care providers and first responders,” Hodges said.

The vaccine has to be kept at the ultra-cold temperature of -94 degrees Fahrenheit. The right kind of freezer just happened to be right in Bethel, down the highway at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Kuskokwim Campus. The campus leaders reached out to the health corporation to lend out the ultra-cold freezer. Because the vaccine has to be stored at such a low temperature, YKHC can’t ship it out to villages.

“We’re going to have to go to them with the vaccine, a vaccinator, and a pilot,” Hodges said.

All on small charter planes.

“And fly from village to village and vaccinate those individuals on the runway, basically, and then move onto the next village,” Hodges said.

The village clinic workers will line up on the runway, bare their arms in the winter wind, and get inoculated.

The vaccine requires two doses. The first shipment will cover the first dose, and the second shipment should arrive two weeks later. The second dose of the Pfizer vaccine needs to be delivered as close as possible to 21 days after the first to be effective. Each person will receive a card with the date that they’re scheduled to receive their second dose.

Operation project Togo is praying for clear weather conditions.

The regional vaccination plan has a special name: Project Togo. Named after the main lead sled dog during the 1925 serum run, when dog teams mushed the life-saving antitoxin across Alaska to quell the diphtheria outbreak in Nome and end the town’s quarantine. Hopefully, Togo can deliver again.

Source.

https://www.kyuk.org/post/project-togo-how-ykhc-plans-distribute-first-covid-19-vaccines

K300 dog race postponed.

The Kuskokwim 300 Sled Dog Race has been postponed due to COVID-19 induced lockdowns throughout the Y-K Delta. The K300 was originally scheduled to begin on Friday, Jan. 15, with the Bogus Creek 150 and the Akiak Dash also on the same weekend. All three races have now been rescheduled for the weekend of Feb. 12.

The decision to postpone the events came after consultation with health experts at the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation. The K300 Race Committee made the announcement in a Dec. 10 press release. It states that the race may be postponed again, or ultimately canceled, if the circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic do not improve.

There are 21 mushers currently signed up for the K300. If they choose to opt out of the February start date, or if the races are canceled, they will get a full refund of their registration fees. In the scenario in which the races are canceled, the race committee said that it would assist mushers who rely on prize money from the K300 races to support the operations of their kennels. The details for that program have not yet been released.

The K300 also puts on a series of shorter local races, and all of them have been put off for now. The race committee hopes that the local races can start in January 2021 with strict safety protocols.

Lilly drug reaches bethel Alaska. 

https://www.kyuk.org/post/antibody-treatment-available-covid-19-patients-bethel

Project Togo.  Is a go. It snow expected about an inch a day winds 10 to 15 over the next 5 day window.... 

The plan is to provide vaccines by private charter to elders and elder home workers by flying in injections given on runway and fly to the next airport. 

Even to fsthest reaches of America the vaccine will be availible this week.... moderna begins the panel review today for mrna1273.

As millions across the nation await details about the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine, remote Western Alaskan villages prepare to be among the first to get it. The operation, coined Project Togo after the sled dog who led a life-saving antitoxin delivery to Nome in 1925, recalls memories of that year’s infamous diphtheria outbreak which plunged rural Alaska into quarantine. Almost a century later, officials are hoping the current vaccine delivery will mirror the success of its namesake.

On Monday, Alaska received 35,100 doses of the COVID-19 vaccines, making it one of the initial states to obtain a shipment of the long awaited vaccine. Around 1,000 doses will go straight to the Yukon-Kuskokwim region, which serves 56 tribes, said Dr. Ellen Hodges, Chief of Staff for the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation. Elders, health care providers and frontline workers are first in line to receive it.

Southwest Alaska has one of the nation’s highest rates of infection from COVID-19, resulting in its early vaccine acquisition. Yukon-Kuskokwim delta’s 56 villages have an infection rate of 172.6 cases per 100,000 people. The spread of the virus can be intensified by rural Alaska’s tight-knit nature, while treatment is complicated by the area’s remote location. Some villages have been hit harder than others — in four Western Alaskan communities, more than a quarter of the residents have tested positive for the virus.

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Vaccine being unpacked footage youtube.

Bethel Alaska. 

The Moderna vaccine received emergency use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday and the shipment began on Sunday.

“We want to offer this vaccine to Alaskans as quickly as possible,” Alaska’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Anne Zink said in a prepared statement.

Alaska will initially receive 26,800 doses of Moderna vaccine in addition to the 35,100 doses of the Pfizer vaccine, which is enough to vaccinate 61,900 people. The second doses for both of the vaccines will be sent in January.

While both vaccines must be kept cold, the Moderna vaccine requires less extreme conditions, with shipping at 4 below zero, thawing at refrigerator temperatures for 30 days, and storing at room temperature for 12 hours. In contrast, the Pfizer vaccine must be shipped at 94 below zero and needs to be stored at that refrigerated temperature for five days.

“The Moderna vaccine will help us reach more communities, especially those that have less access to cold storage,” said Tessa Walker Linderman, the co-lead of Alaska’s COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force. “Having both vaccines provides us with more vaccine — and more flexibility.”

Source. http://www.newsminer.com/alerts/moderna-vaccine-arrives-in-alaska-additional-health-workers-to-receive-next-vaccine-in-january/article_47c88cc8-440f-11eb-8b72-f76bea505961.html

The community enacted strict health precautions. Anyone flying into Mekoryuk needed permission from the tribe to exit the plane. Residents took social distancing and masks seriously, and cases stayed low.

No one in the community died from the virus.

The community reached 100 percent eligible for the vaccine are now vacci area first in nation.

Supply logistics in shipping vaccine medical teams vaccine coordinators and health aids has made possible was was determined impossible. 

Alaska as a state has reached 33 percent fully vaccinated and 46 percent one dosed.

tribal health organizations primarily serving indigenous communities - representing just 18% of the state's 730,000 inhabitants - have played an outsized role in the state's overall vaccine campaign.

Acting Anchorage Mayor Austin Quinn-Davidson, who is white, tweeted a photo of herself getting a shot courtesy of a Native organization in early March.

"Alaska is leading the country in vaccinations because of the incredible work and generosity of our Tribal partners," she wrote.

By early April, more than 42% of all Alaska residents aged 16 and older had received at least a first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, ranking near the top among states with the highest rates of inoculation per capita and by percentage of population.

The percentages run higher in regions dominated by Native populations, which have been particularly hard hit by the pandemic.

Although precise figures are hard to come by, a significant number of shots received by the general public come from the IHS supply or are being administered by tribal networks, said Zulkosky, a vice president of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corp, which serves a region the size of Oregon