Pegge Erkeneff starts things off with an update from the Kenai Peninsula School District. Masking remains optional within schools and the district maintains “symptom free” protocols for students, teachers and staff. Erkeneff mentions another contingency that’s been in place since the fall.
“We did put in different filtration systems within the whole ventilation system. And then we have this hydrostatic cleaner that we use in the schools too that sanitizes and so those were two of the main things that we put in place last fall that are being used with fidelity,” Erkeneff said.
Regarding the week ending Tuesday April 12th, SPH reports zero ER visits relating to Covid for the first time in months according to Derotha Ferraro, along with zero new hospital admissions from Covid. And as far as treatment and prevention goes, one hundred vaccines were administered, with no monoclonal antibody infusions during that time.
Last week Derotha Ferraro said the SPH testing facilities were showing an eight percent positivity rate, down from the week before. Now numbers show that the downward trend the Southern Peninsula previously boasted, is coming back around.
“We did 393 tests and of those 49 were positive. It does put our positivity rate at 12% and it does show that 49 individuals tested positive in the last week at our facility,” Ferraro said.
Alaska Public Health Nurse Lorne Caroll said on the state and federal level, there is a newer sub-variant of concern. He says it is being monitored closely.
“BA2, that, the sub variant of Omicron that, that is the most popular sequence not only in the US but in Alaska as well, so the last sequencing report from the state lab was released March 13, and you know the news there is that ba2 accounts for 66% or about two thirds of all of the specimens that are sequenced,” Caroll said.
KBBI’s guests also discussed long Covid, boosters and the reliability of testing results.
You can hear the whole conversation on the Covid Brief on KBBI.org and as a podcast on your favorite app
