at the challenges of vaccinating in a remote areas of alaska america and france me and the entire news team in berlin thanks for watching. closely. carefully. these soon. to begin.

discover the. kooks. subscribe to the documentary. the. arctic is one of the most remote areas off the u.s. it's also a region that has been particularly ravaged by the corona virus and all the help they need to recover is flying to the rescue. ford you call it is providing vaccinations to surrounding villages and aid workers can only access the areas by plane or by snowmobile in fact alaska is currently vaccinating. a faster

rate than any other state in the us how is this possible. that. there aren't any doctors in forth you call but there is deborah mccarthy the health centers director she's responsible for the areas 500 residents who have to forgo a lot snow slopes instead of ask fold roads no pumps no restaurants no fast internet this is what normality looks like 8 miles north of the arctic circle. i think for most people actually live here is pretty small.

i mean people work hard you know everybody has to get where they everybody has to go through and teens everybody goes fishing most people have a card and it's a close knit small community i mean it's like we were really to tell most everybody it's of course now like that where you know if you're going to if you went someplace else or in a city or even just a bigger town that is excessive all by road you know where we're sort of on an island here and everybody is very close. this is one reason why the virus has claimed 4 times as many indigenous lives in alaska compere to urban whites. deborah has a lot on her mind when she goes to the health center every morning namely how to protect people here from the virus as quickly as possible. it's been a few weeks since vaccinations opened up to everyone over the age of 16 much

earlier than in most other states same day appointments are available without waiting here. so your arm might be a little bit sore. some people have more soreness than others so easy to tell people pick the arm that you don't. really need to use today is ok. deborah and her team have already immunized more than half of the village concerned about high death rates the health center received the vaccine from the u.s. government and the indigenous health insurance fund now there of vaccine doses in abundance. it's amazing we have a couple 100 doses we've pretty much finished after the charter tomorrow

we will be finished with the villages and then we just have to finish for u. conn go and we didn't think we would be able to do this tell the summer you know get everybody then. deborah takes us to her home a small wooden house on the outskirts of town people here are content living without much. deborah has already seen much of the world the daughter of a white father and an indigenous mother she lived in germany for several years when her father served in the army for yukon has always been her home when the 1st covert cases broke out it was easy for deborah to shield herself from the rest of the world because she lives alone with her son but for most families quarantining is almost impossible because they live in small homes and the virus spreads rapidly

it was pretty scary for everybody it was kind of. i've really big unknown you know how bad is it going to get here people were thinking oh my you know the grandmas and grandpas thinking oh wait this is going to be like 918 and it's going to wipe out whole villages so that's kind of what everybody was preparing for so of course people were scared the kids were scared we were worried at the clinic you know we don't have ventilators if somebody needs oxygen or c.p.r. what are we going to do there was a lot of preparation going into it. vaccination day has arrived the team is making the final preparations before our own trip to the villages nurse kimberly and i'm is carrying 50 doses of the modernity vaccine in her luggage and she hopes that this will bring the state of emergency to an end one person gets a fair that's you know that's 5 percent of the population almost so that one

household pretty much can cause for the whole village to shut down that means nobody hauling water nobody hauling fuel nobody you know you're not leaving your house to go get stuff that you made ok it's going things down to 20 minutes would be. the flights are expensive and time consuming so the team tries to vaccinate as many people as possible on a single trip the aid workers who come today they won't return for 4 more weeks. this is another reason why even with many villages situated in the middle of the wilderness alaska is the fastest stage when it comes to vaccinating residents in the u.s. . they are approaching vina thai on the banks of the yukon there is hardly any infrastructure no cell phone network and supermarkets and most importantly no road access. the yukon is the lifeline for villages in the arctic in the summer it provides salmon upon which many residents

here depend in the winter it resembles an ice desert. a snow slopes or of cells landing strip. there are 2 cars in the village and one of them is the ambulance in the winter the snowmobile is the most important means of transportation it's just a short drive up to the health center.

food fuel clothes everything has to be flown in here today it's the vaccines turn to be. 20 villagers are already waiting inside word has spread about how dangerous the virus is here too so no one in being a time needs to be convinced about being vaccinated. right. did you guys read the. brochure thing about whether or not ok you know you're going to get some side effects. for. whatever. i'm good at it. yet here.

we've been anticipating to get our 1st right and we are so happy to finally get it and we thought it's going to you know hurt but. no pain. if there were then the vaccination marks the end of a long period of isolation finally meeting friends again finally partying again. i am. ok after the shot a sticker and some warm words. congratulations lady. but i have to. lawrence roberts is next like most of the village but he belongs to the indigenous which in tribe ok if you read the information sheet for many years he's relied on his strong constitution but in time of the pandemic he wants to play it safe after all there aren't any doctors or ventilators in vina thai either

you are done i'll see you in 4 weeks. is pretty important i mean. from wherever they go the. you would have to get sick or you know if it will prevent parts musician that's good you know. lawrence takes us to his home. we use his quad bike to get to the edge of the forest of the 200 person village there are no roads here during winter you drive on a snow slope and in summer on a meadow. he lives alone in a locked cabin with his son for the past year he hasn't been allowed to leave the village the tribal government imposed strict rules to protect the community from the virus laurence roberts says that the modern lifestyle is what makes people so

vulnerable to the pandemic. we don't have no car also contact and we're always doing is just basically travelling with ballparks and it here and there and ocampo should move or something that's where we settle down for a month. you know and try to meet this is what it is and it. took me when i listen to your i didn't come out of there that was 1010 years old. it was much healthier lifestyle you know that i knew that experience never get sick and when you're in with you know it's you know. back and forth you can the village has come together at the traditional spring carnival for the 1st time since the pen demick began there hasn't been a cold case here for 2 months. the coronation of the princess is one of the year's highlights.

up until recently deborah i'm a card he would not have expected to see this much normality even though sled dogs are racing again this year. i feel very fortunate i mean we hear about other places that don't even have all of their health care providers vaccinated yet and we were all vaccinated in sheep in december for the most part i think the majority of us and everybody here in the other villages feel like it's the beginning of the end. by summer life in the rest of the us will be as carefree as it is in the villages in alaska arctic circle. reyes.

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