The state saw a big uptick in coronavirus numbers over the weekend, the largest jump it’s seen since the pandemic began. And today (7-27-20), local health officials announced three new coronavirus cases in Sitka.
A man in his thirties was tested on July 23 — he was not experiencing symptoms at that time. A woman in her twenties, with symptoms, was tested on July 19.
A woman in her sixties also tested positive, but the city’s press release does not indicate when she received testing or whether she has symptoms.
All three patients are residents isolating at home.
As case numbers increase, public health officials have made changes to keep from being overwhelmed. Local public health nurses are doing contact tracing for coronavirus cases across the state, rather than only for their own communities, in an attempt to make the process more efficient and reduce the workload for contact tracers. And with a national backlog of virus tests, it’s taking nearly two weeks for some Alaskans to receive their test results. These changes have led the public to push for more information.
When the Sitka Unified Command met met last week (7-22-20), city administrator John Leach started the meeting by saying he had received criticism not being transparent enough with the public in the city’s COVID-19 response. But he said the public is not usually privy to all of the government’s process when dealing with disaster emergencies.
“The public and the press are not present when our military are planning an attack on Fallujah. They hear about it, they hear the details after it happens, and they are told that the mission was accomplished whatever they were assigned to do,” he said. “I’m not trying to say this is a military operation we have going on here, but we need to get our job done.”
Leach said that it’s at the assembly level where public input can happen- and that’s why the unified command group has assembly liaison members.
During the portion of the meeting that is recorded for the public, Leach said the city had recently been denied a couple of requests from state and federal officials. The state denied a request for 30,000 cloth masks, just one day after announcing it would make a number of masks available for cities.
“They had, from what I understand, a couple million of them available and they went quick,” he said.
Leach said they were looking at other opportunities to receive a stock of cloth masks, including more that may come up with the state.
Currently, Sitka has 33 coronavirus cases. 22 residents, 11 non-residents. 26 of the patients have recovered.
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story stated that there are currently 21 resident coronavirus cases in Sitka. This story has been updated to reflect the correct number 22.
