Petersburg emergency officials are still working on a plan that offers recommendations for responding to the COVID-19 pandemic depending on the number of cases in the community and other factors.
The borough’s incident commander Karl Hagerman told the assembly Monday that the community risk mitigation plan is being drafted based on one produced in Ketchikan.
“What the plan does is uses various indicators of community risk to assign an overall risk level to the community,” Hagerman explained. “It’s being written in the style of a health alert, basically just offering recommendations to the community to how to respond if the case count goes up or the hospital fills up with patients maybe not even of COVID-related illnesses. It’s not being written as a mandate.”
Hagerman hopes to release a draft in the next 3-4 weeks. He also wants to create an online dashboard similar to one used in Ketchikan. It shows testing and case numbers, risk levels and recommended measures for limiting COVID spread. It also details compliance with state travel mandates for testing or quarantine.
Hagerman also reported that the borough’s emergency operations center team continues to meet once a week. Petersburg Medical Center staff continue screening and testing of incoming travelers at the airport. The borough’s contract with the state for that airport testing runs through the end of October. There’s also a new testing tent being installed this month outside the terminal for the fall months.
