By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
If you have symptoms, SEARHC wants you to be tested for COVID-19.
Despite the expansion and relaxation of testing criteria more two weeks ago, some misunderstanding remains about the criteria, SEARHC officials said.
“If you have symptoms (cough or fever), we want you to be tested; if you have symptoms we want you to call the hotline at 966-8799,” SEARHC communications director Maegan Bosak said today. “The qualifiers – travel history, close contact with confirmed cases – are no longer in effect. We want to make sure people understand that testing criteria has been expanded.”
Bosak was responding to comments raised at the Wednesday meeting of Sitka’s Emergency Unified Command at the fire hall. The committee includes health care, community and emergency response leaders.
“There is a sense that people don’t feel like they can be tested,” Bosak said today. “The testing now is more broad.”
Those at the meeting called the new access to “rapid testing” in Sitka as a “game changer” (see related story). Regular COVID-19 test results take two days. Rapid test results are available within two hours.
Bosak was among a dozen or so participants at the meeting, all of them masked up and observing guidelines on social distancing recommendations to prevent and slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.
City Clerk Sara Peterson, public information officer for the COVID emergency, provided a recording of the meeting for today’s Sentinel story.
With no confirmed cases yet in Sitka, City Administrator John Leach said the goals of the group remain the same: mitigate the spread, care for the sick, test and vaccinate, mitigate the economic impact and inform the public.
A discussion item is on the agenda for tonight’s special Assembly meeting, about actions the city can take to help residents and businesses with the financial impacts of the coronavirus emergency.
But at the top of the city’s to-do list is addressing the concerns raised about the planned arrival of hundreds of seasonal workers into Sitka.
The Assembly plans to take up that issue at its regular meeting on Tuesday.
Dr. Elliot Bruhl, SEARHC vice president and chief medical officer, sent a letter Tuesday to the state with his concerns about the mitigation plan submitted by Silver Bay Seafoods for the arrival of 450 seasonal workers, and asking for a review.
“It is naive to believe that all 450 of their workers will self-quarantine for 14 days before embarking for Alaska,” wrote Bruhl. “It is unrealistic to plan quarantine for 14 days after arrival in a bunkhouse due to shared sleeping quarters. The medical reality is that despite best efforts, if this plan is enacted, the virus will come to Sitka and spread to these workers and the community, creating a strain on limited medical resources intended for the entire region.”
Other discussion at the 90-minute meeting was about ongoing medical preparations for a coronavirus outbreak in Sitka, which has yet to record its first case. Plans include modifications at the hospital, conversion of patient housing to accommodate some COVID patients, and a request to the state for use of facilities at Mt. Edgecumbe High School.
SEARHC health care workers wait under an outdoor shelter this morning in the parking lot near the old Sitka Community Hospital. SEARHC officials today released new guidelines for who receives COVID-19 testing. (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)
Bruhl said in his update that facilities could be modified and used if the community were facing a “surge of cases,” which might involve cases from outside Sitka, and within the SEARHC regionwide system.
“Our model of care revolves around our commitment to all of the patients in all of our communities,” Bruhl said. “What that does mean is that our preparedness in our smaller clinics in locations revolves around stabilization and transportation of patients to Sitka, which is our hub.”
Care is provided at Mt. Edgecumbe Medical Center and, if needed, patients can be medevacked to Seattle or Anchorage.
“That continues to be our model of preparedness. We continue to build structures and processes to support that,” Bruhl said.
SEARHC is expecting the arrival of more ventilators to supplement the 13 already here.
“Our intention with minimally ill patients with COVID-19 in our smaller communities is to transport them here earlier in their illness, and not wait for them to decompensate in a remote location,” he told the group. “If they’re going to decompensate, we want them to decompensate in our hospital facility or in a facility directly adjacent.”
The patient housing area is being converted to be used to isolate and closely observe about two dozen patients. The plan also includes using Mt. Edgecumbe High School to supplement that, but detailed planning has been suspended “until we’re certain we’re going to have a chance to use that facility.”
Mt. Edgecumbe Medical Center has negative pressure-care areas for 12, which could be doubled quickly to 24.
“We have 13 ventilators we’re able to staff and run,” Bruhl added.
Bruhl said other accommodations are being made to continue to provide health care, with alternate locations set up off-site to serve higher risk and vulnerable patients – such as elderly patients, pregnant women and infants.
He said members of the health care community are reaching out to make sure there is adequate support to keep the vulnerable population at the Pioneers Home safe.
While SEARHC continues to collect samples for tests daily – with results back in two days – there is a limited number of rapid result test kits. Bruhl said he’s hoping to get rapid test machines for smaller communities to supplement the seven for Sitka, Juneau, Wrangell, Prince of Wales, Haines, Kake and Hoonah.
The Avid rapid test kits have the potential to help stop the spread here and around the state, Bruhl said. He commented that there are still plenty of testing supplies and SEARHC has a “strong supply of PPE” – personal protection equipment.
Also raised at the meeting were questions about serving the transient population; food distribution, including subsistence food; and Sitka’s work to get reimbursed for outlays related to the COVID pandemic.
