Rural Alaska at risk as COVID surge swamps faraway hospitals

Rural Alaska at risk as COVID surge swamps faraway hospitals

3 years ago
Anonymous $dRhNkMsRKr

https://apnews.com/18bd9ffb116ce59872451f11067e94eb

TANACROSS, Alaska (AP) — One Alaska Native village knew what to do to keep out COVID-19. They put up a gate on the only road into town and guarded it round the clock. It was the same idea used a century ago in some isolated Indigenous villages to protect people from outsiders during another deadly pandemic — the Spanish flu.

It largely worked. Only one person died of COVID-19 and 20 people got sick in Tanacross, an Athabascan village of 140 whose rustic wood cabins and other homes are nestled between the Alaska Highway and Tanana River.