[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 40 (Wednesday, March 3, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1019-S1021]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            TRIBUTE TO DR. ELLEN HODGES AND ELIZABETH BATES

  Mr. SULLIVAN. Madam President, it is that time of the week that our 
pages--when we had them--used to always look forward to. It is the time 
of the week that I come down on the floor and talk about someone in 
Alaska who is making a huge impact on my State, a lot of times for the 
country. These two Alaskans I am going to talk about actually have 
gotten national news for the great work they are doing, somebody we 
call our Alaskan of the Week. It is usually about a group of 
individuals, one, two, maybe a group of people who are helping make 
Alaska what, in my view, is the greatest State in the country--
resilient, tough, generous, kind, unique.
  Like so many States, this pandemic has really hit Alaska hard--
tourism for sure. The oil and gas sector last year was really hit hard 
with low prices. Unfortunately, this year, with the Biden

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administration's attacks on this sector of the United States and 
Alaska's economy, it is tough; commercial fishing, tough. It has been a 
tough year economically. But an area of good news during the pandemic, 
one that I am very proud of for all of my constituents, involves how we 
in Alaska have responded on the health side. Vaccines, testing, death 
rates--we have consistently been the top State rated in all of these 
categories throughout the pandemic, which is kind of amazing given that 
we are a very, very big State with a very small population.
  I know that so many Americans watching right now want to get back 
out, visit Alaska. Our Governor, Mike Dunleavy, recently tweeted:

       With the best vaccination efforts [in the country] & some 
     of the lowest COVID numbers in the country, Alaska is open 
     for business . . . safe for travelers!

  So come on, America, get back up to Alaska. Love to have you.
  So this is all very true. Our vaccination efforts are viewed as the 
best in the United States of America, and the great lengths that so 
many in Alaska have gone through to make it so have captured the 
country's imagination. These efforts just in the last couple of weeks 
have been featured all across the country--USA TODAY, ``Good Morning 
America,'' the Washington Post, the New York Times, a great piece by 
Bloomberg News, and so many others. So big thanks to the press corps, 
the national press corps, for featuring my State's efforts and 
importantly the heroic work being done to distribute lifesaving 
vaccines to a State that is more than 2\1/2\ times the size of Texas. 
Sorry there, Senator Cornyn, Senator Cruz. It is true.
  Most of the geography of Alaska is dotted with small villages without 
roads in freezing-cold temperatures. I was in Fairbanks last weekend--
just a couple of weeks ago in Fairbanks. It almost hit 40 below. That 
is cold.
  All across Alaska, our healthcare workers are jumping on boats, 
single-prop airplanes, snow machines, and, yes, in a couple of cases, 
dog sleds to bring the vaccine and hope to their fellow Alaskans. And 
it shows.
  As of a few days ago, close to 160,000 Alaskans had received at least 
their first vaccine dose. That is about 21 percent of our State's 
population.
  Now, in Southwest Alaska, what we called the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, 
or the YK Delta--those are two giant rivers that come together--these 
efforts have been particularly impressive. That is largely thanks to 
the amazing people at the YK Health Corporation, or YKHC, which is the 
YK Delta's Tribal health provider. The whole organization, consisting 
of just about 90 healthcare professionals, serves around 28,000 people 
in the YK region, which is about the size of Oregon, so a huge area, 
not a lot of people.
  Prior to the vaccine, the YK Delta had been stricken by COVID-19 with 
one of the highest infection rates in the country, in a very far-flung 
place in terms of the dispersal of the population. It is the efforts of 
two women there in the YK Delta, Drs. Ellen Hodges and Elizabeth Bates, 
who are our Alaskans of the Week, who have been in charge of getting 
the vaccine to roughly 50 remote villages in Southwestern Alaska. 
Spread out over a territory, as I said, about the size of Oregon, the 
village populations in the YK Delta range from about 1,200 people to as 
small as 10 in terms of population.
  Let's start with Dr. Hodges. She is the chief of staff at YKHC. She 
grew up in rural Minnesota. After graduating from the University of 
Minnesota Medical School, Dr. Hodges came to Anchorage as a resident in 
2002, eventually making her way to Bethel, which is the hub village. It 
is a big community, the biggest in the YK Delta. She absolutely fell in 
love with the area. She said it has everything--very friendly people, 
authentic. It is beautiful. Soon enough, her patients turned into her 
family. Also soon enough, she was--according to Tricia Franklin, 
Alaska's director of the State Office of Rural Health Division--``the 
go-to person for how things are working in rural communities'' and how 
to get things done.

  She worked in the emergency room tending cuts, bruises, broken bones. 
She delivered babies. She worked tirelessly to contain a number of 
tuberculosis outbreaks in the region. And then the virus hit, and as I 
mentioned, it hit the YK Delta region very hard with some of the 
highest COVID rates in America.
  There are reasons for that: the multigenerational housing, very 
crowded housing in this region; communal lifestyle; and also--here is a 
big one, and it should be a shock for every American listening--about 
50 percent of the households in this region of America lack running 
water. Let me say that again. Some of the most patriotic communities in 
the country, as Alaska Natives serve at higher rates in the military 
than any other ethnic group in the country, live in communities that 
don't have running water or flushed toilets--American citizens.
  It is wrong. It is wrong. And we need--we the U.S. Senate, Congress--
to continue to work on this issue. How do you wash your hands five 
times a day, as the CDC wants you to do during the pandemic, when you 
don't have running water or flushed toilets? We need to keep working on 
this. It is a disgrace, to be honest.
  So what happened when COVID hit in this region? Because of a lack of 
sanitation and many other problems, precious lives were being lost. 
Elders, who are vital to pass on the traditional wisdom of the Native 
Alaskan culture and heritage, were being lost. Because of a lack of 
functioning sanitation, even young people, whom this virus doesn't 
really impact, were starting to have respiratory illnesses and getting 
sick, and some were even dying. That is horrible. It was terrifying, 
particularly for an area that is still dealing with the 
multigenerational trauma of previous pandemics, particularly the 
Spanish flu of 1918, which in several Alaskan Native communities wiped 
out entire communities; 60, 70 percent mortally rates from that flu. So 
we needed to get to work fast, particularly in this region.
  Enter another intrepid doctor and our Alaskan of the Week, Dr. 
Elizabeth Bates. Dr. Bates arrived in Bethel in December of 2018--just 
a little over 2 years ago--and she found a community that she loved. 
She had experience working in women's health and infection control and 
emergency care and disaster relief. She has great experience across the 
country--really, across the world. As a doctor, she worked with 
patients during 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and has spent time even in 
refugee camps in Rwanda.
  In Bethel, she was in charge of setting up testing centers for the 
region. Working hand in glove with Dr. Hodges, she started one of the 
first drive-through and airport testing sites in rural Alaska, much of 
it outside in the cold weather under tarps.
  But we all know that testing alone, particularly, as I said, when 
people are living so closely together and don't live in places where 
you can wash your hands frequently, wasn't nearly enough. They tried 
everything--public service announcements, reaching out to villagers, 
helping them use bleach to sanitize. It was a 24/7 effort, but, as I 
said, it wasn't enough. The virus was spreading rapidly. They were 
losing. People were dying.
  Then on December 18, a few days before winter solstice--the darkest 
day of the year--hope came to Bethel, AK, because the first vaccines 
arrived. Thanks to the great work of so many scientists, government 
workers, private sector workers, Operation Warp Speed, the vaccine 
arrived on December 18 to the YK Delta. These two intrepid doctors I 
have been talking about cried. They had seen a lot of death and 
struggles in the region, and like a Christmas miracle, this vaccine 
arrived. They hugged each other, and then they got to work.
  As I said, there are roughly 50 remote villages in the YK Delta 
spread out over a territory about the size of many States in our 
country--as a matter of fact, bigger than most States in our country--
so they traveled on small planes, trucks, on ice roads, snow machines, 
dog sleds.
  Their operation, Project Togo, is named in reference to one of the 
famous sled dogs that helped carry the diphtheria serum to Nome, which, 
of course, is the original inspiration for the Iditarod Sled Dog Race. 
Sometimes it was so cold that they had to keep the syringes filled with 
COVID serum under their clothes, lest the serum froze.
  The operation that they initiated and organized has hit every single 
village,

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all 50 in the YK Delta, bringing the vaccine to pretty much anyone who 
wants it. In some villages, they have been able to vaccinate as much as 
half the population. As a result, the numbers of COVID infections and 
deaths are plummeting in this region, and hope is spreading.
  This great team, Drs. Hodges and Bates, as well as all in the 
community and all working at YKHC, have made a huge difference, and 
this team has created a special bond that nobody will forget.
  Dr. Bates, a relative newcomer to Alaska, says that the experience 
has made her fall in love with the YK Delta region even more. She 
bought a home. She intends on staying. She describes the beauty of the 
region, something that she appreciates even more now, as ``Our sky is 
huge. . . . We have a front-row seat to the entire universe.''
  These two doctors also have a front-row seat in providing a front-row 
seat to hope during this pandemic.
  So I want to thank both of them again, Dr. Hodges and Dr. Bates, and 
all those across Alaska who are helping distribute the vaccine.
  As I mentioned, right now, Alaska is the No. 1 State in the country 
per capita in terms of vaccine distribution and the No. 1 State per 
capita in terms of testing and has one of the lowest death rates. This 
is really amazing, really, when you see how big and widespread and 
harsh the weather conditions can be in the great State of Alaska.
  Our fellow Alaskans are tough, resilient, and innovative, and Dr. 
Hodges and Dr. Bates are a huge and essential part of this effort. That 
is why I want to congratulate them and thank them again for being our 
Alaskans of the Week.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The assistant majority leader.

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