Five new COVID-19 cases were announced in Petersburg Wednesday evening. That brings the total active case count in the community to 17, all within the past week. Only one of the cases is travel related and the rest are community spread.
Health officials don’t know the source of exposure for the community cases. In a press release, Petersburg Medical Center says contact tracing is hampered by the high number of new cases across the state. People with COVID are urged to notify their own contacts and those contacts should stay home and monitor themselves for symptoms.
As of 7:30 p.m. Wednesday night, there were NO COVID tests pending at PMC.
Contact tracing is ongoing. Alaska Public Health is contact tracing for people outside of the school setting but the Petersburg School District is responsible within the schools. That started in late August when school districts were notified by the Department of Education that they would be involved in identifying and notifying close contacts of positive COVID cases in the schools. That’s due to the increased number of positive cases in the state overall.
In a social media post, the school district stressed that this is different than how things were done last year so they appreciate people’s patience as they work through this.
Currently, all three schools are still open and operating in red status. That includes universal masking for all staff and students.
PMC has free COVID testing available:
• Asymptomatic Testing is available today (Thurs) from 9:00 – Noon at PMC, next door to Public Health
• Symptomatic testing or post contact testing is available by appointment. To schedule that, call the COVID Information line at 907-772-5788.
• Travel Testing is available Monday through Saturday from Noon – 4:00 pm through the ER entrance.
