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Unalaska is in the midst of its largest surge of COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic. As of Wednesday, there were 214 active cases on the island, according to the city’s COVID-19 dashboard. One hundred and thirty five are considered community-acquired and 79 are industry-quarantined. Previously, the city had reported its highest number of community cases at 30, during the height of the delta surge this summer.
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Unalaska’s clinic is out of its most efficient COVID-19 test kits, prompting health officials to recommend against retesting for island residents who test positive with at-home kits.
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Unalaska has received its first shipment of at-home COVID-19 tests, according to local health officials. A shipment of 200 tests from the state of Alaska arrived this week and is now available to the community, said Megan Sarnecki, medical director at the Iliuliuk Family and Health Services clinic. The clinic was approved for 1,000 at-home tests – or 500 boxes of two tests each – from the state.
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St. Paul is getting a new police chief this week, about a month after the island’s entire police department resigned over a COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
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The City of St. Paul says two essential workers tested positive for COVID-19 Monday, after flying into the community. The tests were performed at the local health center as part of the city’s travel testing requirements, according to a city statement.
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Alaska’s top doctors emphasize importance of COVID mitigation as Unalaska votes to keep mask mandateThe Unalaska City Council voted Tuesday to keep a community-wide mask mandate in place, as the state continues to lead the country in average new daily COVID-19 cases per capita.
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Ninety-one percent of eligible St. Paul residents are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to city officials.That — along with strict protective measures — has helped keep the coronavirus largely out of the small Pribilof island community. St. Paul has recorded just two COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic, said City Manager Phil Zavadil. The first was in April and the second in August.
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Unalaska’s local risk factor has increased to “substantial” due to a rise in local COVID-19 cases.Since Friday, the city has reported 12 new cases of the virus. This brings the island’s total to 27 active community cases, up from 18 last week. There are also 20 industry cases currently in quarantine, according to city officials.
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In a somewhat contentious City Council meeting Tuesday, councilors voted to keep Unalaska’s current mask mandate in place for the next two weeks.The island currently has 40 positive COVID-19 cases — 15 of them community members, according to city officials.While the local coronavirus risk level remains in the “moderate” category, council members also took other things into account, like the shortage of hospital beds in Anchorage, and the increased number of people being medevaced off the island.“For the first year of the pandemic, I think we had two medevacs for the entire year. What we’ve seen with [the Delta variant] — we’ve had three medevacs in the last six weeks,” said Melanee Tiura, the clinic director at Iliuliuk Family and Health Services.
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Nearly nine months after Adak reported its first case of COVID-19, the nation’s westernmost city is seeing a spike in infections.