Covid positives trending down around Homer

On Thursday’s Covid Brief with Kathleen Gustafson, the panel addressed vaccines, the new relief bill from congress, and contact tracing, and started out with an update on the current situation.
    “We definitely are still seeing cases coming across. Obviously we have luckily been seeing the trends kind of going down. Obviously we still want to make sure that we're still taking all the proper precautions and all that kind of stuff, you know, we still have Christmas, we still have new year's,” he said. “We want to make sure that we are not having a false sense of security or anything. We want to take all the precautions. I know that we still have, we have our large numbers on the board and all that kind of stuff.”
    Wallbrecher, who mostly focuses on contact tracing, described the process.
    “It varies from day to day obviously, but we've got quite a large team throughout the state. And so on a day-to-day basis, you know, we're, we're calling hundreds of people. Just so if there's testing positive or, you know, we have a large team throughout the state, that's calling out everybody that tests positive to try to outreach these persons and trying to, do the best that we can to mitigate the disease. To try to contain it, to make sure that it doesn't spread anymore. So we're reaching out and making sure that, you know, people are safe and healthy.”
    A listener sent in a question about rumors that some first responders are refusing the vaccination, which Gustafson posed to the city’s Jenny Carrol.
    “I know that a certain percentage of first responders are not signing up for the first round of the vaccines and reasons are varied and complex,” she said, adding, “The city will not be mandating that everyone take the vaccine at this point.”
    While the first round of the two-dose vaccine has been given in the Homer area to those high on the federal list of recipients, the next phase will come with the next shipment of vaccine, which South Peninsula Hospital’s Derotha Ferraro says will go out to a larger portion of the population.
    "The real next phase begins Monday. And what that phase is, is an expanded health care net. And that's anybody who has direct patient contact. So that might be an eye doctor, a dentist people that weren't in the first phase two weeks ago,” she said. “And so starting Monday is the expanded health care interaction.”