While health officials in Sitka are encouraged by seeing fewer new cases of COVID-19 in the community over the past few days, they say continued precautions against the disease are essential.
Statewide coronavirus infections remain on the rise, with the delta variant making up 96 percent of new cases. When the Sitka Emergency Operations Center met on Wednesday (8-4-21), Public Health Nurse Denise Ewing said the community’s plateau could be the result of both fewer new cases, and a drop in the number of people seeking testing.
“What we need to do, though, is continue to test and increase testing so that we have an accurate view of really what’s going on here in Sitka,” she said. “Our tests have decreased over the last couple of weeks, which is probably why some of the numbers are starting to decline.”
Emergency Medical Services commander Rob Janik said that his team has been responding to several COVID calls a day, doubling the typical amount of ambulance runs. He called for Sitkans to continue to exercise caution, and not to celebrate just yet.
“Beware of false optimism. Just because our numbers went from 30 to 17 doesn’t necessarily reflect anything other than a snapshot in time,” he said. “And whether its truly a dip or lowering of the case rate, we’ll only know retrospectively. So before you pop the champagne because ‘Wooo, our levels are low,’ be cautious on that.”
One indicator of the presence of the delta variant in Sitka is the increased virulence of the disease among new infections. Although the line for COVID has been shorter recently, SEARHC Chief Medical Officer Dr. Elliot Bruhl said hospital admissions — and medevacs — have been on the rise..
“We’ve had upwards of 10 patients in the hospital, 11. And we have had to medevac some folks out. We’ve had to medevac them out because they were very sick, and we’ve had to medevac them out because of limitations in terms of oxygen supply…at least four in the last week,” he said. “So, you know, the, the, the stress and strain of the pandemic surge here in Sitka has really been getting felt by our staff, and they’re working terribly hard to, to keep up with it. But they’re doing a good job.”
Bruhl said they were reducing the hours of the COVID testing from noon to 3 p.m. Monday through Saturday.
Sitka School District Superintendent Frank Hauser he’s preparing to start the school year in person with a return to full-day instruction this fall.
“We’re just continuing to finalize those safety measures and COVID protocols that were pioneered last year, and making sure that we have those in place,” he said.
Hauser said the district was also also working on aligning the school’s mitigation alert levels more closely with the city’s, and was planning to host listening sessions with students and their families next week.
