Tag: ruralcovid

Second Sitka resident has tested positive for COVID-19

Details about the patient haven't been released.

As Maniilaq details Kotzebue’s first COVID-19 case, city officials worry over enforcing testing

Officials are worried that without the power to force people coming into the community from outside, they may be missing cases of the coronavirus.

Nome hospital closed to the public after employee tests positive for COVID-19

The positive case was discovered during routine testing.

Bristol Bay, on edge as it heads into fishing season, has its first resident coronavirus case

The first Alaskan from the Bristol Bay-Lake and Peninsula region has tested positive for COVID-19. The state has not disclosed which community they are from because it has less than 1,000 residents.

Southwest Alaska village of Nunapitchuk grapples with flooding and coronavirus

Residents in the village of 500 can only leave to visit neighbors for essential visits. Even the gas station is closed.
A village at the end of a marshs

First positive coronavirus case reported in Kotzebue

The patient had traveled from outside the city on Tuesday and immediately began self isolating, according to the regional healthcare provider.

Fifth nonresident seafood worker tests positive for coronavirus in Alaska

The state also announced that an 11th staff member of Juneau's Lemon Creek Correctional Center has tested positive for the virus.

Nunapitchuk, a small village in the Y-K Delta, is in lockdown after a positive test for COVID-19

The Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation said that the person was traveling from Anchorage when they tested positive at the Bethel airport before heading to a nearby village, Nunapitchuk, the same day.

Pandemic strains management of Yukon River salmon

Biologists have to figure out how to monitor salmon populations in rural communities without the danger of bringing the coronavirus into those communities.
alaska canadian border sig

Border closure leaves Southeast Alaskans cut off from backyard

With the borders closed, Skagway, Haines and Hyder residents who depend on neighboring Canadian towns for necessities are struggling with new restrictions caused by the pandemic.
Boats in a sweeping bend in a river

State says it will provide additional testing to communities ahead of fishing season

Chief Medical Officer Anne Zink said that fishing regions would get extra testing capacity as out-of-state workers descend on the region in the coming weeks.

‘Sometimes we get bored’: Unalaska fish processors work back-to-back seasons to keep their jobs

Managers decided that keeping workers on the island would help prevent new arrivals - many of whom come from other countries - from bringing in the coronavirus.

Injunction holds up $8B CARES Act Tribal allocation for Alaska Native corporations

Some tribes sued the secretaries of Interior and Treasury to keep federal CARES Act money from going to for-profit Alaska Native Corporations.

Ghosts of 1918 pandemic haunt Bering Straits villages as they face COVID-19 without water or sewer

In rural Alaska villages with no water or sewer and hard to find hand sanitizer and cleaning supplies, following the CDC guidelines to help prevent the spread of disease requires "being a MacGyver at all times."

Thousands of summer workers are headed to Alaska from Outside, where the infection rates are higher

“This is a question about levels of risk that Alaska is willing to tolerate,” said Bryan Fisher, the incident commander for Alaska’s pandemic response.

A Chilkat mask remembers how ‘we took care of each other’ during the pandemic

Lily Hope weaving a Chilkat blanket in 2016. (Elizabeth Jenkins/KTOO) Chilkat weaving has been practiced for hundreds of years by Indigenous people on the Northwest...

Unalaska clinic joins ranks of healthcare providers struggling to pay bills during pandemic

The clinic, which serves up to 15,000 people, says it has about six months of reserves left despite cost-cutting efforts.

What Alaskans learned from ‘the mother of all pandemics’ in 1918

Overall, the flu killed a greater percentage of people in Alaska than in any other state or territory in the U.S. except for Samoa.
A nurse in a white suit, mask and clothes holds a vial

Nothing ‘false’ about it: Sitka’s first coronavirus remains a positive case

In subsequent tests, the patient, a resident of a long-term care facility who had been in lockdown for six weeks, tested negative in a subsequent test.

There are new health rules for fishermen arriving in Bristol Bay, but critics say there are loopholes

The president of the regional health corporation and local tribes say the Dunleavy administration's plan is unrealistic considering the realities of the looming commercial fishing season.