Real time Balto sequel

Traveling to the Arctic Circle by road is not a light endeavor. You need expert driving skills, adequate supplies, and a strong knowledge of the terrain in order to ensure your safety. Always err on the side of caution and prepare adequately before you set out on your trip. If you’re willing to make the effort, a road trip to the Arctic can be one of the most memorable experiences of your life, allowing you to see gorgeous mountains and beautiful wildlife in a way that few travelers to this region of the world ever experience.

Source.

https://airlinkalaska.com/driving-to-the-arctic-circle/

And in the art of story telling you need this guy....

https://alaskasnowmobiletours.com/

And of course an enciromentalists outpost for the Audubon. 

Alaska spans 1200 miles from north to south, and 2300 miles from west to east with a land mass that is larger than Texas, California, and Montana combined. Alaska has over 47,000 miles of coastline and a diversity of habitats that range from temperate rainforest to Arctic tundra. Alaska also has more than 75 million seabirds, 10 million waterfowl, and many species of birds that breed nowhere else in the US.

Alaska's IBA program began in 2000, in cooperation with the Russian Union for Bird Conservation and the Asia Council of BirdLife International, to identify marine and coastal IBAs on both the Alaskan and Russian sides of the Bering Sea. In October 2001, Audubon Alaska initiated a second IBA project in the Cook Inlet watershed of southcentral Alaska. Sites were identified based on information provided by wildlife agencies, Audubon chapters, major landowners, and others in the Cook Inlet area.

In 2004, Audubon Alaska received a State Wildlife Grant from the Alaska Department of Fish & Game to support a statewide IBA project. Building on the work already carried out in the Bering Sea and Cook Inlet regions, Audubon Alaska launched the statewide IBA project in 2005, and over the next few years identified IBAs across Alaska. An Alaska IBA Technical Committee was formed in April 2005 to help to guide the process.

From 2010 to 2015, we developed spatial analysis methods to reassess Alaska's IBAs. We identified marine IBAs utilizing a wealth of new at-sea survey data (the NPPSD 2) and the revised Beringian seabird colony catalog. We identified new and/or revised coastal and interior IBAs using an extensive compilation of data we called the Alaska Waterbird Dataset. This work was supported by a grant from the Alaska Department of Fish & Game. The marine IBA identification methods 

This expansive area includes the active (prograding) delta of the Yukon River from the mouth of the Apoon River west and south to Dall Point. It includes over 1,000 km of shoreline and encompasses three prominent physiographic regions: 1) the deltaic system fromed by the discharge of the main tributaries of the Yukon River, 2) a long segment of coastal graminoid meadow and non-vegetated intertidal flats to the south, and 3) two large embayments (Scammon and Kokechik bays) at the southern terminus having extensive intertidal flats, each protected from the Bering Sea by a series of barrier islands and sand spits. The active Yukon Delta segment is ringed by a 3-4 km wide band of mostly unvegetated intertidal mud and sandflats that integrate into extensive sedge/graminoid meadows that extend inland about 2 km to the most recent beach ridge. The central segment lacks the numerous distributaries common on the active delta, instead it is characterized by numerous shallow ponds and lakes.

So plausibly you have three teams all with impending risks to deliver medicine.

One airforce is observing adverse runway landing conditions.

Snow needs to be removed. 

Coast guard is facing ruff sea winds and flood conditions and snow mobiles are flying on 1 to 3 Inches of powder.

I believe a medical package is destined to reach Yukon delta rgion safely ....

Medicine arrives very limited quantities 240 doses. 

State officials say tribal providers already have a strong network for distributing other types of vaccines that will serve as a kind of template for COVID-19. There’s also a second leading version of the COVID-19 vaccine, from Moderna, that has a longer shelf life and can be stored at warmer temperatures.

“We just did a practice run with all tribal communities and locations of getting flu vaccine out there,” said Matt Bobo, the manager of Alaska’s immunization program. “We do that every year, so this isn’t different than that.”

Tribal providers say they’re collaborating with the state but still in the planning phases for vaccine distribution.

Winkelman, from YKHC, said he has between 600 and 1,000 employees that could be among the first in line to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, based on plans to prioritize early supplies for health care workers.

If his organization can get access to the Moderna vaccine, with its longer shelf-life and warmer storage temperature, YKHC’s existing infrastructure should be adequate, he said.

But if it needs to distribute Pfizer’s version, with its super-cold storage requirements and five-day shelf-life, “we’re going to need help,” he said — potentially from National Guard aircraft and hangars.

Commercial airlines’ facilities in rural Alaska are limited, Winkelman said, and the benefit of using publicly-owned infrastructure is that health-care providers could access it at any time of day.

Bobo, the state’s immunization manager, didn’t respond to a follow-up question about whether that idea was under consideration. But Winkelman said he’s confident that the logistics can ultimately be sorted out.

“I think it’s going to take some brainstorming — quite honestly, that’s the easy part,” he said. “It’s just getting the vaccine — that’s what we need. We need it now.”

The first monoclonal antibody treatment, meanwhile by the Food and Drug Administration earlier this month.

The drug is still in extremely limited supply, and the state’s initial grant from the federal government was just 240 doses, said Coleman Cutchins, a pharmacist with the state health department.

But Eli Lilly, the company that makes the drug, says that enough of the antibody treatment for 1 million people will be available by the end of the year. And the FDA says that in clinical trials, it has reduced COVID-19-related hospitalizations or emergency room visits for patients at high-risk of severe disease.

Source. http://www.ktoo.org/2020/11/23/alaskas-geography-poses-unique-challenges-for-getting-covid-19-vaccines-treatments-to-rural-areas/

Northern lights can be seen in alaska.

Sunset on one town won't rise again until the end of January. 

NATUONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN FAIRBANKS Said that when the sun sets at 1:30 p.m. Alaska Standard Time on Wednesday, it won’t rise again in the Alaskan town of Utqiagvik until Jan. 23, 2021.

Initial, anecdotal reports suggest that patients receiving the antibody treatment have fared well, Cutchins said. Tribal health care providers do administer other types of IV infusions at clinics across the state, said ANMC's Onders.

Onders said that it makes sense to try to provide the antibody treatment “as close to home as possible,” since the data indicates that the drugs only work early in the progression of COVID-19, before a patient needs hospitalization. So far, Onders said that tribal providers have been invited to participate in planning around distribution of the COVID-19 vaccines. He also said that it appears that the state is trying to ensure even access to vaccines and drugs between urban and rural Alaska, although making sure that happens “will take effort," he added.

“The easy route is to say, ‘The road system gets early vaccines and rural Alaska waits for the others,'” he said. “And that’s not acceptable.”

Source. https://www.kyuk.org/post/alaska-s-geography-poses-unique-challenges-getting-covid-19-vaccine-treatments-rural-areas

Real person in Alaskan logistic. 

JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska – For many Americans, getting behind the wheel for a first solo drive is a rite of passage.

For Alaska Air National Guard Staff Sgt. Elizabeth McJannet-Bratton, noncommissioned officer in charge of inbound cargo, 176th Logistics Readiness Squadron, that rite of passage didn’t come behind the wheel of a Buick or Honda, but behind the yoke of a Cessna 172.

After performing a few touch-and-go maneuvers at Augusta State Airport, Maine, with her pilot instructor looking over her shoulder, he told her to pull over after taxiing. Without warning or pretense, he told her it was time to drop the training wheels and fly solo.

Dumbstruck, McJannet-Bratton said she collected herself and talked her way through the checklist of procedures. After a few minutes of defying gravity without another human being within earshot, the then 16-year-old safely touched down, successfully realizing a childhood dream of taking flight on her own terms.

Another ambition the Air Guardsman recently realized was winning a statewide pageant, earning laurels as Miss Alaska Collegiate 2021 during an Oct. 24 competition in Palmer.

McJannet-Bratton’s platform of “Combat Boots to High Heels” underscored her lifelong conviction that women can pursue careers in the military and in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, without sacrificing a sense of femininity.

“The platform is about inspiring young women with the knowledge you can be in the military or a STEM career field, and also be confident in yourself while being as girly as you want to be,” she said. “Those aren’t mutually exclusive things.”

The path to capturing the Miss Alaska Collegiate sash began in Sydney, Australia, where McJannet-Bratton was born to an Australian mother, Michelle, and an American father, David. Her parents met in Anchorage, a city the Airman calls home.

The family moved to the United States when McJannet-Bratton was 2, settling in Erie, Colorado, where she grew up. David, a commercial pilot and aerospace engineer, worked on designing the Atlas V space rocket, inspiring his daughter to seek a life of wings and rocket boosters.

“I basically grew up on Star Trek,” she said.

A Girl Scout who lettered in choir and track and field, McJannet-Bratton’s aeronautic pursuits led the 16-year-old to the Civil Air Patrol and an encampment that would further cement her interest in aircraft and the military.

During a subsequent summer camp at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, McJannet-Bratton said she developed a yen for the state on the edge of the Arctic.

“I came to Alaska expecting igloos and tundra, and was like, ‘Wow, it’s gorgeous up here,” she recalled.

When she managed to snag a $79 one-way ticket to Anchorage, the Coloradan decided to take a leap of faith. If it didn’t work out, she could write it off as an extended vacation. But if she could find success, she thought she could make a new home.

She landed a job as a nanny and, after a month in the state, joined the Alaska Air National Guard’s 176th Wing as an air transportation specialist with 176th LRS. A year-and-a-half later, she landed a full-time technician job with the unit and later reclassified to traffic 

Aleutian islands tribes describe covid outbreaks. 

The Eastern Aleutian Tribes, Inc. said one additional Cold Bay resident has tested positive for COVID-19 on Tuesday. In a statement, CEO Paul Mueller said residents should follow Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance including limiting unnecessary travel, social distancing and wearing a face covering.

“Eastern Aleutian Tribes is working closely with Alaska Public Health and the city of Cold Bay to ensure precautions are taken to protect anyone who may have been in close contact with the individual,” Mueller said in a statement posted to the Eastern Aleutian Tribes Facebook. “How the individual contracted the virus is under investigation.”

The borough is estimated to have around 3,000 residents, according to us census data but has reported 25 total COVID-19 cases in residents and nonresidents since the pandemic began. On Monday, the Department of Health and Social Services said the borough was reporting three new COVID-19 cases.

Source. 

https://www.alaskasnewssource.com/2020/11/23/cold-bay-enters-code-red-status-after-multiple-covid-19-cases-reported/

Looking at Christmas delivery package for rural Alaskan native Americans. 

A COVID-19 vaccine is expected to arrive in Alaska early next month and could begin distribution to prioritized populations as soon as Dec. 22, said Alaska’s chief medical officer Dr. Anne Zink in a Monday news conference. Though the environment around vaccine distribution was “highly variable and rapidly changing,” Zink said that was the most recent date given by Operation Warp Speed, the federal governments’ COVID-19 vaccine program.

Speaking to reporters alongside other members of the Alaska COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force, Zink said state, local and tribal authorities worked together to draft a prioritization list and schedule for vaccine distribution for months, but the exact details of those plans depend on a lot of different information, some of which is not yet available.

Pfizer, one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, submitted a request for an Emergency Use Authorization on Friday, said Tess Walker Linderman from the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services, which was the beginning of the current vaccine timeline. The Federal Drug Administration scheduled a meeting for Dec. 10, to approve the EUA, she said, and once that happens vaccines would then be quickly sent to states.

States will then need to decide which populations get the vaccine first, with vulnerable populations and health care workers likely being among the first. How the state makes that decision will depend on several different things. There are a handful of different vaccines being produced, said state epidemiologist Dr. Joe McLaughlin, and those vaccines affect populations differently. One of the issues for the state is that without that information it’s difficult to know how best to use a certain vaccine.

“As the science continues to progress we might see differential effects,” McLaughlin said. “That’s all information that is forthcoming, but that will also weigh into our decision-making process

The back drop as senator Lisa Mikulski continue to work within Washington circles to ensure her state receive needed medicines...

To be continued as more information is realized.

 Balto (1919 – March 14, 1933) was a Siberian huskyand sled dog belonging to musher and breeder Leon Sasala. He achieved fame when he led a team of sled dogs on the final leg of the 1925 serum run to Nome, in which diphtheria antitoxin was transported from Ankorage Alska, to nenana Alaska, by train and then to nome Alaska by sled dog to combat an outbreak of the disease.

The first doses of a COVID-19 vaccine could be distributed nationwide in just a few weeks. Here’s what we know so far about Alaska’s plans.
https://www.newsbreakapp.com/n/0XjHqWNu?s=a99&pd=07PMePfL&lang=en_US.

 While Bethel is not a large town, it can be a bit tricky to navigate your first time out here since most info is spread through word of mouth and there are certainly not many Yelp reviews to depend upon. As a basic review, Bethel is a town of approximately 6,400 people (based on 2017 Census review) in western Alaska, located on the Yukon Kuskokwim Delta. The Yukon Kuskokwim Health Corporation (YKHC) serves approximately 28,000 people spread across an area roughly the size of Oregon. There are no roads connecting the 56 villages in this area, and transportation is by small plane, boat, 4-wheeler or snow machine.

Source. https://yk-health.org/wiki/Bethel_Survival_Guide

Snowmobiles....

Operation warp speed accelerates cooperation to have the vaccine in hand by Dec 10th.

The CDC brings a lot to the table. They get vaccines out every year, from children's immunizations to the flu vaccine," Operation Warp Speed Director for Supply, Production and Distribution Paul Ostrowski said. "So the CDC, Health and Human Services and our Department of Defense Planners, who got after the manufacturing piece and are working with the states to plan for every distribution contingency — create a powerful force." 

At the core of the distribution plan are the basic tenets of visibility, coverage, uptake and traceability, Ostrowski explained. Visibility of the vaccine is essential, particularly since the number of doses up front will be limited. 

"We need visibility — not only of vaccines, but of the ancillary items we're distributing, like syringes and needles, because the scrutiny will be unprecedented and we want to know what we have and where it is," Ostrowski said. 

Coverage is the broad dissemination, as this vaccine will be pushed beyond traditional administration channels to ensure everyone who needs it gets it. 

https://www.whs.mil/News/News-Display/Article/2424772/operation-warp-speed-refines-vaccine-delivery-plan/

We have to go beyond brick and mortar," Ostrowski said. "We have to get this to the long-term care facilities, to meat packing plants. We have to go mobile to be able to cover the entire country and not depend on people to come to us."

Uptake is managing the supply and demand.

"We want to make sure we don't have imbalances with overages in one place and shortages in another," he said.

Traceability is also a top concern, Ostrowski said, noting five of the six vaccines require two doses. 

"The vaccines are not interchangeable," he said. "We need the ability to verify the manufacturer and to notify the recipient when it is time for their second dose."

While Operation Warp Speed will deliver vaccine shipments as directed by the jurisdictions, it will be up to the states, territories and major metropolitan areas to further define where the doses ultimately go. 

Packaging. For product.

 people can use it so we don’t waste it,” he said.

Source. https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/11/23/covid-getting-vaccine/