'Large Portion' Of Alaska House Members Exposed To COVID-19 As Experts Anticipate Omicron Peak

The Alaska House of Representatives canceled a regular floor session Wednesday amid concerns about COVID-19 exposure among a “large portion” of members. The news came as experts expect the Omicron surge in the state to reach its peak soon.

In a statement, House Speaker Louise Stutes, R-Kodiak, said a “large portion” of Alaska state representatives had been exposed to coronavirus in the last 24 hours, adding that canceling the regular session was a decision made “in abundance of caution.”

A spokesperson for the House majority caucus also said that about half of House representatives were close contacts of a positive COVID-19 case, the Alaska Public Media reported. Stutes said contact tracing was ongoing.

Instead of the regular floor session, the House held a technical session with no normal legislative business, KTOO reported.

Wednesday’s session was supposed to determine the fate of Republican Rep. David Eastman as a member of the legislative committees, Associated Press reported. Eastman admitted to being a member of the Oath Keepers far-right group, and it is unclear whether the proposal to remove him from the legislative committees will be raised again anytime soon.

Rep. Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham, confirmed that a member of the House has tested positive but he did not identify the infected representative. Edgmon also clarified that a floor session will only be scheduled again “once we know it’s safe,” local newspaper the Juneau Empire reported.

Meanwhile, Alaska’s chief medical officer, Dr. Anne Zink, said cases in the state “are kind of starting to maybe flatten out a little bit,” referring to the number of confirmed coronavirus infections in Anchorage. Data from the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services dashboard also indicated that there was a 19% decrease in new week-to-week cases, the Anchorage Daily News reported.

State epidemiologist Dr. Joe McLaughlin said that he is hopeful that the downtrend in new COVID-19 cases is an indication that the Omicron surge in the state has peaked. But he added that “it was too soon to know that for sure,” according to the outlet.

Last month, McLaughlin said he was hopeful that the Omicron wave in Alaska would last shorter than previous waves, as was the case in South Africa, wherein the variant surge peaked about three weeks after the first case was reported and then the number of cases dropped quickly. The Omicron COVID-19 variant was first detected in South Africa late in November.

According to the Alaska DHSS COVID-19 dashboard, the state’s alert level is high at this time. The state has logged a total of 213,606 confirmed COVID-19 cases since the pandemic started. More than 3,400 people Alaskans have died from the disease.