The Unalaska City Council voted unanimously in favor of a citywide mask mandate at its meeting Tuesday, in an attempt to curb the recent spread of COVID-19
Local public health mandates including mask-wearing and self-quarantine after travel are now "encouraged" instead of "required" in the City of Unalaska
Credit Hope McKenney/KUCB
The resulting widespread exposure forced the city to move from the medium to high coronavirus risk level after nearly a month and a half at the lower threshold. And dozens of locals who visited the Norwegian Rat Saloon have been asked to quarantine and test for the virus, if they haven t been vaccinated. We are extremely sorry about the events that occurred, said Dave Wood, U.S. Seafoods chief operating officer. We regret that these individuals made terrible decisions, put a lot of people at risk and harmed a lot of people. We are as outraged as you are.
Credit Maggie Nelson/KUCB
State health officials have asked Alaska vaccine providers to follow federal recommendations to pause use of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines due to a clotting risk. More than 7 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine have been administered across the U.S., but a handful of women have gotten a blood clot afterward, prompting the pause. In Unalaska, however, that halt is not expected to have much of an effect on the city s vaccination effort, according to local health officials. I think in the grand scheme of vaccination, it s not going to change things much, said Megan Sarnecki medical director and family medicine physician for the Iliuliuk Family and Health Services clinic. [The pause] came on relatively late. We didn t have very many [Johnson & Johnson] doses. And luckily, we ve already given out a lot of vaccinations [in general].
Credit Hope McKenney/KUCB
One of the most remote regions in Alaska is the Aleutian Islands. And for the most part, communities along the island chain have done well throughout the pandemic, recording relatively few cases outside of seafood processing plants.
But as the COVID-19 vaccine becomes more widely available across the state and country, health care providers are grappling with the logistical challenges of distributing vaccines to the region s windswept communities.
Now, according to health officials, a new Biden administration program that sends COVID-19 vaccines directly to community health centers could boost vaccination efforts for Eastern Aleutian Tribes a tribal health care provider that operates in seven of the region s communities.