By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
One new COVID case on the dashboard for Tuesday took Sitka back into “high” alert, with a total of 9 cases for the week that put the rate at 105.60 per 100,000 population.
The alert had improved to “substantial” on Tuesday. Sitka goes to “high” when the rate is 100 or higher.
Sitka has had between 0 and 2 daily cases in the last week.
Mayor Steven Eisenbeisz told the Assembly Tuesday that changes likely are coming on the risk front, and cited Alaska Chief Medical officer Dr. Anne Zink’s comments at the Alaska Municipal League conference.
“What they’re looking at doing is getting away from a case-based policy and looking more at hospitalizations and deaths at the risk factor,” he said. “So no longer being concerned about a (vaccinated) asymptomatic person who has it, but more, are our hospitals full, are citizens dying unnecessarily?”
With that, the state is looking at switching from the PCR testing, to antigen testing, the mayor said.
“It’s going to be done a little more rapidly so that there will be opportunities to quickly isolate cases,” he said. “There was some information about contact tracing ending. It’s proving to be extremely expensive and most people are letting their contacts know at this point.”
He expects to hear more about how Sitka’s risk level is affected, and for the Assembly at some point to consider how the mask ordinance will be affected. The mask ordinance is in effect when Sitka is at high risk.
