By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
Sitka finished the weekend by dropping down a few points in the official COVID case rate figures.
As of today, the 14-day rolling case rate was 11.93 per day, down from 13.21 on Friday. Sitka currently has 103 active cases.
Four cases were added on Friday, including one nonresident, and eight on Saturday. Sunday marked a new low in the current spike, with one case added, a 20-29 year old symptomatic woman.
By press time today, two cases had been added for the day, a symptomatic boy under 10 and symptomatic woman in her 30s. The weekend per-day totals were down substantially from two weeks ago, but Sitka is still well into the “high” alert range, since more than one case per day is the average.
The past few weeks have seen high numbers of cases, peaking at 35 resident cases in each of two straight days in July. The highest cases-per-day totals on the current two-week dashboard are 24 resident cases on July 26, and 23 residents and two nonresidents on July 30.
In the past week, Wednesday had the highest number in a single day, when 14 residents and one nonresident tested positive.
Sitka still has a high infection rate, but the New York Times COVID tracking page showed it is slightly less “hot” than before, going from dark purple to dark maroon, with an average daily infection rate of 101 per 100,000. But infections are on a downward trend, a 65 percent decrease since 14 days ago.
Elsewhere in Alaska, cases are on the upswing, with a 1,400 percent increase in Prince of Wales Island, and a 700 percent increase in Skagway. Ketchikan is reporting a 450 percent increase since 14 days ago, with a per-capita case average of 45 per 100,000.
Sitka’s vaccination rate is climbing slowly with 5,725 (78 percent) partially vaccinated and 5,281 (72 percent) fully vaccinated, based on the 12 and up population of 7,385.
Both Harry Race Pharmacy and SEARHC are offering vaccinations with signups and registration through the websites sitkapharmacies.com and covid19.searhc.org.
