As COVID-19 hospitalizations reach record numbers, Anchorage Mayor Bronson says, “I don’t know what else we can do.”

COVID-19-related hospitalizations are setting record highs in Alaska, and hospital leaders say the health care system is under heavy stress and getting worse. In an interview Tuesday, Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson he said he will not ask residents to get vaccinated, to issue a mask warrant or request other COVID-19 restrictions.

Asked what the city would do to reduce pressure on hospitals, Bronson said, “What measures can we take? Hospitals are privately run organizations.”

“I don’t know what else we can do,” said Bronson, who said the idea of ​​a mask warrant was “very inappropriate.”

Bronson recently applied and the Assembly approved $ 8 million in funds to deal with the COVID-19 outbreak, to increase testing, vaccinations and mass care.

While Bronson said it is “quite clear” that there is a crisis at Anchorage hospitals, he suggested hospital capacity is suffering because of the staff shortage that is getting worse by demanding vaccination of employees.

“I tell you that my e-mail box is exploding with people who are health professionals and who refused to get the vaccine, to the point that they will walk away from their job,” he said. “Therefore, we need to understand that demanding vaccines among many of these health professionals will not make things better, but make things worse.”

Anchorage hospital officials said Wednesday they have not seen him.

Shirley Young, a spokeswoman for the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, which operates the Alaska Native Medical Center, said there is no shortage of staff for workers to abandon vaccination policies. The hospital requires that all employees be fully vaccinated by October 15th.

“Some of our newly hired employees have expressed their gratitude for joining an organization that gives such high priority to the health and safety of our patients and staff,” Young said in an emailed statement. “ANTHC has seen little or no impact at this time, as our deadline to meet it is October 15. Rather, despite our best efforts to keep us safe, our communities continue to be affected by the misinformation that encourages Alaskans not to be vaccinated. The strong increases resulting from COVID-19 and the increase in the workload of the hospital staff are the main problems to which we are responding at the moment ”.

Similarly, Mikhal Canfield, a spokesman for Providence Alaska, said the hospital has no knowledge of waivers due to its vaccination policy. It requires that all caregivers be fully vaccinated by October 18 unless they have an approved medical or religious exemption.

At Alaska Regional Hospital, staff should not be vaccinated against COVID-19, although it encourages staff to do so, as it is one of the best ways to prevent infection, according to Dr. chief physician of the hospital, Dr. Tim Ballard. .

The vaccination rate of the facility among staff is around 70%, Ballard said.

At a legislative hearing Wednesday, Jared Kosin, president of the Alaska State Hospital and Residential Centers Association, said he was unaware that mandatory vaccinations were a hospital staffing issue.

“I have not heard any complaints from our members because they are concerned to see an exodus of staff for objections to vaccination,” he said. “… We did not know that this had a detrimental effect on the staff.”

Some members of the Assembly and public health experts have called on the mayor to urge vaccination or take other actions such as instituting a mask warrant. Studies, including a state report on Anchorage restrictions last summer, have shown that masking, capacity restrictions and collection limitations help alleviate the burden on hospitals and prevent deaths by slowing the spread of anchorage. COVID-19.

The state report found that Anchorage’s emergency orders, including a mask warrant and limited capacity in bars, restaurants, gyms and covered public premises, likely caused large drops in the daily COVID-19 case count.

[Weekend spike brings Alaska’s COVID-19 hospitalization numbers to another record]

Bronson said that instead of warrants, the city uses its website to inform residents that “they should always follow different protocols, from something as simplistic as washing their hands to being as complex as take the vaccine “.

“We are doing everything we can to educate the public. That is my responsibility, “he said.

The Anchorage Department of Health is also working with the state to provide monoclonal antibody treatment, according to the mayor, and the city is conducting outreach information on vaccines and vaccine clinics, testing and prevention strategies.

The data do not show that unvaccinated people make up the majority of COVID-19 hospitalizations that overload Alaska’s health care systems.

As of Tuesday, 197 people statewide were hospitalized with COVID-19, with more than half -107- in Anchorage, according to state data released Wednesday. People with COVID-19 account for 18.3% of hospitalizations in Anchorage, although statistics do not include long-term COVID-19 patients who no longer test positive but still need hospital care.

State health officials have said everyone, including vaccinated people, should wear masks indoors, where transmission rates are high, and have encouraged vaccination.

In Anchorage, 58% of residents aged 12 and over were fully vaccinated as of Wednesday, without meeting the 70% target set by the previous municipal administration.

In a letter to Bronson on Friday, the Speaker of the Assembly, Suzanne LaFrance, implored the mayor and his administration to join her in a “united effort to combat this crisis,” beginning with a joint statement urging residents to do everything they could, including vaccination.

“If the mayor came out and urged people to get vaccinated, to wear a mask, to do everything they could to prevent the increase in case numbers, to help our neighbors and to help hospitals, I think this really “People would listen to him,” he said in an interview.

LaFrance said Wednesday afternoon he had received no response from the mayor.

In the interview Tuesday, Bronson said it was not his place to tell residents to get vaccinated. Public service announcements on social media and a recent Brixon Nixle message to residents have urged testing, but have stopped asking residents to get vaccinated or put on masks.

This has left some people “scratching their heads,” LaFrance said.

Bronson’s own chief medical officer in the city’s health department has called vaccines the best tool available to fight the virus.

“If people or citizens rely on politicians of any degree at any level of government to make their personal health care decisions, we are in a pretty sad state,” Bronson said during the interview. “These are decisions you’re supposed to make with health care professionals and your doctor, and I don’t want to get involved in that process.”

He said he feels comfortable instantly testing, but said he doesn’t feel comfortable instantly vaccinating.

“From what I’ve heard, no one had any negative effects when tested. So it’s very simplistic. We do tests, we get the data. Without the data, it is very difficult for policymakers to make consistent decisions, ”Bronson said.

[COVID-19 surges in unvaccinated communities are sending more kids to the hospital]

The mayor has said he is aware of the number of cases and the severity of infections, including those that are asymptomatic.

The Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that vaccines are safe and effective and that serious adverse events after vaccination are rare. For example, severe allergic reactions occur in approximately 2 to 5 people for every million vaccines in the United States.

“Trying to get someone vaccinated is a different thing, because there’s a certain risk. It doesn’t seem to be very big,” Bronson said.

Bronson also said he will not be taking the COVID-19 vaccine yet because he has already had the virus and has natural immunity.

“Why take the risk at any level, when I have greater protection against the immunity I have now?” Bronson said.

A recent study shows that the natural immunity of a previous infection and vaccination offer the best protection.

President of the Assembly LaFrance said that since the pandemic is a public health crisis, the choice to get vaccinated is not just a personal decision, but it protects other residents.

“We need to have a public response, and to have a public response, we need everyone to work together doing everything they can, including urging others to get vaccinated and wear masks,” LaFrance said.

[US hospitals hit with nurse staffing crisis amid COVID]

The assembly could try to take legislative action and institute its own mask ordinance in the city, LaFrance said. But Bronson is likely to veto it, he said, and the Assembly would need a supermajority to overturn it. Even if he did, it is up to the executive branch: the mayor – to enforce the ordinances, she said.

When asked if he would veto this ordinance, Bronson said, “I will cross this bridge when we get there.”

Local epidemiologist Janet Johnston, who resigned from the city’s health department in July after Bronson took office, he said, at the very least, that Anchorage needed a mask warrant. If the Assembly passed its own legislation implementing a mask mandate (even without the application of the code by the city), many people would follow suit and help companies enforce mask rules without losing support. public, he said.

“I am just horrified. We have a situation in which the health system is totally in crisis. They are asking for help and no one will do anything, ”said Johnston. “And what scares me the most is that, as many cases as we’ve had, we have a lot of people who are still susceptible.”

Daily News reporters Zaz Hollander and Annie Berman contributed.