By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
The online dashboard for Sitka COVID-19 updates was among the topics at this week’s meeting of the Sitka coronavirus response group, the Unified Command.
The dashboard, reached through cityofsitka.org, went live last Friday.
“We wanted to make sure we’re putting in reliable data ... regularly on our update cycles,” City Administrator John Leach said at the outset of the Wednesday meeting.
City IT director Grant Turner said today that the number of visits to the cityofsitka.org site has almost doubled in the last week, from 150 before the dashboard went live, to 250 to 300 a day this week.
With no new cases on Thursday, the cumulative positive case count remains at 42 resident cases, and 17 nonresident cases. The color code for the Sitka alert level is “Yellow,” which is the lowest. The Sitka schools follow the color coding for the state Smart Start guidelines, with red, yellow and green risk levels. The dashboard lists the school district’s 14-day rolling average of cases, currently 5, at “Green.”
Leach listed some of the features of the dashboard page including the airport testing numbers, and total numbers of tests given – 19,721, with 435 results pending. He said the goal is for the dashboard to become the “central point of information, essentially everything that will go out in a press release live.”
“I’m happy with the first product and I think it’s getting a lot better,” Leach said.
City Clerk Sara Peterson, who is one of the public information officers for the Sitka pandemic response group, discussed the plans to publicize the alert levels, including on the screens at Harrigan Centennial Hall, and on a sandwich board outside the fire hall.
“There’s low, moderate and high panels, and we’ll switch them out as needed,” Peterson said.
Commenting on the school’s alert levels at Mt. Edgecumbe High School, Superintendent Janelle Vanasse told Unified Command that the risk would go from “moderate” to “low” once the students’ 14-day tests are returned.
She said today that the school rates itself on the same color code system as the city, so the present alert level - now that the 14-day tests came back negative - is “Yellow.”
“We wanted our risk levels to match the city’s, because in order for students to do activities in town both our campus must be at low alert level and the city must be at low alert level,” she said.
Sitka School District Superintendent John Holst said the start of school has gone better than expected: “Everything is going as well as it possibly can,” including bus service, he said.
“I’m holding my breath,” he said. Commenting on a statewide teleconference he attended, he said most of the other districts are trying to figure out how to open their schools for in-person instruction.
Holst said he continues to get questions from parents about mask requirements, and the district is doing some “fine-tuning” on mask requirements, including allowing for “mask breaks.”
The face covering and mask break protocol for the district issued Wednesday says: “Mask breaks should occur outside whenever possible. If within the classroom, classroom-wide mask breaks will be teacher-directed, monitored, and have a time limit. Students or staff members should not take face masks off for indeterminate lengths of time. During any mask break, students need to remain seated, distanced, and silent.” The protocol lists a citation from the Harvard Keck School of Public Health, and Holst said the district is working with SEARHC Chief Medical Officer Dr. Elliot Bruhl on COVID precautions.
Holst added today the district plan has a several layers of mitigation measures.
“We expect at some point we will have a student or staff member test positive,” he said. “We’ve put in so many levels of mitigation, that if someone tests positive, we’re hopeful no one else will be infected from that person. That’s why we put in so many levels of mitigation.”
EMS Captain Rob Janik, EOC planning section chief, on Wednesday attended a teleconference on Wednesday on planning for a COVID vaccine. But he said today there was not much to report, as far as when a vaccine might be available.
Janik represents the city in the COVID-19 vaccine working group for the state whose members are preparing for when a vaccine is available.
“I think we’re certain there will be a vaccine,” he said today. “But when and where we just don’t know.”
Also at the meeting, Jay Sweeney, finance section chief, provided status reports on requests submitted to FEMA. FEMA continues to tighten requirements, said the Unified Command news release.
The news release included reminders about COVID precautions, and about the free aysmptomatic testing program 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays at the SEARHC alternative testing site, next to patient housing across from Mt. Edgecumbe Medical Center.
