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Alaska Becomes First State To Allow Everyone Over 16 To Be Vaccinated 

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Alaska has become the first state in the US to allow Covid-19 vaccines to any adult who wants one, as well as individuals over the age of 16, according to Governor Mike Dunleavy, who took to Twitter this week to make the announcement. 

“Effective immediately, Alaska will become the first state in the nation to allow anyone over the age of 16 to get the Covid-19 vaccine. This marks a significant step forward in our efforts to put this virus behind us.” 

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In order to be eligible you must be living or working in Alaska. 16 is also  the lowest age authorized by the Food and Drug Administration for use of the Pfizer vaccine. The Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccine are currently approved for individuals 18 and older. With any vaccine further research always needs to be done in order for it to be approved for teenagers and children because their bodies are constantly developing and changing, so scientists need to ensure that the doses will be just as effective. 

Most states are still only vaccinating specific higher risk groups first, such as senior citizens, essential workers, and individuals with underlying medical conditions that put them at a greater risk of contracting the virus. 

“Nearly one year ago the first positive Covid-19 case arrived in Alaska. Today, our state – because of the undaunted efforts of Alaskans – is leading the nation in vaccination efforts.” 

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Governor Dunleavy initially opened up vaccines to anyone 55 and older in the beginning of March. That policy also included essential workers, such as teachers, agriculture workers, first responders, other healthcare workers, and the media. Individuals with underlying medical conditions have always been a priority as with the rest of the nation. 

Alaska was initially allocated with 288,000 vaccine doses and now about 170,993 people have received at least one of their two shots, and about 119,631 people are fully vaccinated, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “the state has given the most total doses per 100,000 people in the country. With 41,376 doles out, it is one of just two states over 40,000 doses given per 100,000 people – along with New Mexico.” The state of Louisiana has also approved of the vaccine to be given to individuals 16 and older, however, the state is only allowing individuals that young to be vaccinated if they have underlying health conditions that put them at a greater risk. 

Alaska has been one of the luckiest states in the US throughout this pandemic with a total of around 60,000 confirmed cases and 291 deaths; the state is ranked number 46 in terms of states with the most cases. Vermont is the only other state that’s recorded fewer deaths as well. The increase in distribution of these vaccines is a great sign for Americans who are ready and hopeful that the world will start to return to a sense of normalcy within the next few months.

Glacier in Alaska

John Green’s YA Novel “Looking for Alaska” Adapted for Hulu Miniseries

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For years, John Green has authored young adult novels which have received widespread acclaim, not only from his audience of young readers, but from critics around the world. The author’s success has led to the adaptation of several of his stories on the big screen; in 2014, Green’s book about teenagers with cancer who fall in love was adapted into a feature film, and the following year, Paper Towns, a romantic mystery comedy-drama film based on the 2008 novel of the same name, found its way to movie theaters around the world. Both films were financial successes, with the former movie receiving generally positive reviews and the latter film receiving mixed reviews. Their success has led to renewed interest in adapting Green’s other works, including his first novel, the Printz Medal winner Looking for Alaska, which is about a burgeoning romance between two teenagers at a boarding school that ends in tragedy.

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John Green sold the film rights to Paramount Pictures in 2005, just a year after the novel’s publication, with the belief that it would never be adapted into a film. Paramount had shelved the project for years, due to a lack of interest, but started looking more seriously at the prospect of adapting the novel after the success of the film version of The Fault in Our Stars. In 2015 Paramount commissioned a screenplay of the book, and had begun actively casting the film, but plans to produce the movie were canceled indefinitely. In 2018, it was announced that Hulu would be producing an 8-part miniseries based on the book, and John Green announced the lead cast, with Kristine Froseth playing Alaska and Charlie Plummer playing the book’s main character, Miles. Production of the series has been completed, and all eight episodes are set to premiere tomorrow, October 18, 2019, exclusively on the Hulu streaming platform.

Initial reviews of the miniseries, which were released today, are mostly positive. Caroline Framke of Variety thought that the miniseries “wears its bleeding heart on its sleeve,” as its precocious and pretentious cast of teenage characters rings true to the experience of life as a teenager, even if the characters’ superiority complexes start to grate on the viewer. Nevertheless, she praised the miniseries for fleshing out its secondary characters, even though she felt the series’ protagonist was uninteresting. Though she felt that the series’ depiction of Alaska hewed closely to tropes of the genre, as she represents a variation of the infamous “manic pixie dream girl” archetype, the show uses its eight-hour runtime to expand on her character enough to make viewers genuinely interested in her character.

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Jordan Julian, of The Daily Beast, was even more laudatory, claiming that the series is even better than the book, and characterized the show as “beautiful and idealized, foreboding, and entirely relatable to anyone who recalls the intensity of being a teenager.” According to Julian, the show excels in a genre that’s “notoriously difficult to get right,” as she felt that the characters’ dialogue was “natural and self-aware,” and applauded the show for developing Alaska’s character beyond the male narrator’s interpretation featured in the book. Kristine Froseth, of Hollywood Reporter, also praised the series, though she felt that the series “struggles to crack the title character.” Like the other reviewers, Julian praised the series’ decision to keep the events set in 2005 rather than updating the timeline for a modern audience, as this decision both solves the problem of characters not engaging with cell phones and social media as well as invokes a sense of childhood nostalgia among the series’ adult audience, helping them to connect with the youthful mindsets of the cast.

Alan Sepinwall of Rolling Stone gave the show a similarly positive review, awarding it four out of five stars. Sepinwall thought the show gave Green’s characters “the respect they deserve,” as they are portrayed by a talented and charming cast of young actors. Not every reviewer, however, was so positive. Kevin Yeoman of Screen Rant complained that the miniseries failed to “escape its own artificiality,” arguing that the show came off as neither realistic nor significant. Yeoman felt that the characters were incompletely written, having a set of personality quirks rather than cohesive personalities. 

You can watch the trailer for Looking for Alaska here. 

Featured image credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/discodoll/5729585285

Tsunami

A Tsunami From 1964 Is Causing The Spread Of A Deadly Disease

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A major earthquake that took place in Alaska in 1964 is supposedly causing the spread of a deadly disease brought on by fungus that washed to shore during Tsunami’s that were induced by the earthquake. 

The Great Alaskan Earthquake of 1964 reached a 9.2 magnitude, which induced a series of massive tsunami’s all along the Alaskan coast that also hit Vancouver Island, and parts of both Oregon and Washington. The water from the Tsunami’s brought fungus onto land where it permeated and developed in trees and any other surviving plant life. 

“We propose that Cryptococcus gattii (C. gattii, the fungus) may have lost much of its human-infecting capacity when it was living in the seawater. But then, when it got to land, amoebas and other soil organisms worked on it for three decades or so until new C. gattii variants arose that were much more pathogenic to animals and people,” said Dr Arturo Casadevall, from Johns Hopkins University in an interview with the BBC. 

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As the fungus laid dormant in the botanical life in Alaska it was able to use the surrounding and recovering environment to develop and mutate into a deadly substance that is now affecting people after five decades. The fungus induced illness first appeared in 1999 and since has caused 300 cases of pneumonia like illness; 10% of the cases have been deadly. 

The C. gattii pathogen is most common in areas such as parts of Europe, Africa, Brazil, and Australia, mainly coastal areas. Researchers believe the fungus is transported with the water that moves around large shipping boats, however, the fungus doesn’t greatly affect the humans in these areas because it rarely makes it out of the water and when it does, it still takes decades to mutate into the type of fungus affecting those in Alaska. 

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When cases first began appearing in 1999, scientists and doctors alike were left puzzled as to how a fungal infection to the magnitude that they were seeing, spread so intensely. After researching the forest and analyzing the history of the area, the earthquake tsunami power duo, they came to the conclusion that the 1964 Alaskan earthquake was most likely responsible. Tsunami’s are known to carry dangerous fungal spores that normally stay harmless at the bottom of the ocean. These fungal spores can carry pathogens that affect the human body like an invasive skin or lung infection when mutated. 

Scientists have been able to get a greater control over this fungus in the Alaskan areas now, but their concerns have not gone away. Researchers are worried about other areas of the world that have more recently seen Tsunami’s as a result of massive earthquakes, such as Japan in 2011 or Indonesia in 2004. The first time around it took 50 years for the fungus to become a real problem, these cataclysmic events have occurred within the past 15 years, so there’s a long way to go. 

“The big new idea here is that tsunamis may be a significant mechanism by which pathogens spread from oceans and estuarial rivers onto land and then eventually to wildlife and humans. If this hypothesis is correct, then we may eventually see similar outbreaks of C. gattii or similar fungi, in areas inundated by the 2004 Indonesian tsunami or the Japanese one in 2011,”  said Dr Casadevall.