Rashah McChesney

A woman from out-of-state who was diagnosed with COVID-19 in Juneau died, though it’s not clear exactly when. Juneau’s incident commander  Mila Cosgrove says the woman was in her 60s and state health officials reported it to the city on Tuesday. She was receiving care outside of Juneau when she died, according to a press release from the city.

The state also reported 14 more COVID-19 cases for Juneau on Tuesday. According to the most recent report from the Emergency Operations Center, case counts have declined slightly.

City officials are encouraging COVID-19 testing for people who develop symptoms or are exposed to a COVID-19 positive person, those who need regular testing for their jobs, and people who work in settings where they’re regularly interacting with the public unmasked.

The city is holding pop-up COVID-19 testing clinics Monday through Thursday. No appointments are required for the clinics. They’ll take place at Glacier Valley Elementary School, the 20th Century Theatre on Front Street, and Dzantik’i Heeni middle school.

Cosgrove says the city wanted to give people who have transportation issues other resources for testing. The city’s Hagevig Regional Fire Training Center, where most of its tests are offered, is ten miles from downtown Juneau.

Four people are currently being treated for COVID-19 at Bartlett Regional Hospital. Hospital staff say they’re having difficulty transporting patients because ICU beds in other locations throughout the state and Pacific Northwest are full. Bartlett staff are stretched thin, but the hospital reports that it is stable.

The Juneau School District reported seven new COVID-19 cases including one at Thunder Mountain High School where all classes are operating on regular schedules; three at the Mendenhall River Community School where one class has been quarantined; one each at Dzantik’i Heeni and Floyd Dryden middle schools where all classes are still operating regularly; and one at Sayeik: Gastineau Elementary where one class is quarantined as a result.

Statewide, 691 people tested positive for COVID-19 and the state reported seven more deaths on Tuesday. So far 451 Alaskans and 15 people visiting the state have died from COVID-19.

A previous version of this story said that an out-of-state visitor died of COVID-19 in Juneau. The visitor was initially diagnosed with COVID-19 in Juneau, but was receiving care outside of Juneau when she died. The story has been corrected.

The state health department flagged 72 new COVID-19 cases in Juneau on Tuesday. That is the highest number of cases for one day that the City and Borough of Juneau has seen for the entire pandemic. 

Sixty-three residents and nine nonresidents were newly identified, but there isn’t much more information available than that. 

Juneau’s emergency operations planning chief Robert Barr says that the high case count may be because the state health department is behind in reporting new cases. 

“They have been backed up, they’re playing data catch up. You know, there aren’t case counts reported over the weekend, so we do see bigger single-day case counts on Mondays and Tuesdays because of the data backlog,” Barr said.

Barr says Wednesday’s case counts may be high as well, but the Emergency Operations Center isn’t making any plans yet to raise the community’s risk level. 

“We do still talk with public health every day, and the numbers that we are seeing, we’re still cautiously optimistic that the actual number of new cases due to instances of community spread are decreasing or at least staying steady,” he said. 

The city now gets a lot less information from the Juneau Public Health Center about new cases, so it’s difficult to track exactly how people are getting COVID-19. 

But Barr says a lot of the new cases are coming from secondary transmission — meaning people are catching it from someone who has already tested positive for the virus. 

“No case is a good case, but it’s better to see secondary transmission that we know about representing the bulk of our case activity than community transmission,” Barr said. 

Data shows that spike in secondary transmission cases is being driven by the delta variant. Essentially, people who are sick with that variant have higher levels of the virus in their systems. 

“If you have someone who’s sick at home, it’s next to impossible to not spread it to everyone else who’s living in that household because delta is so much more contagious,” he said.

Some of Juneau’s cases are breakthrough infections — that is, fully vaccinated people who are catching COVID-19. 

“That’s true that we do see that,” Barr said. “But we primarily see that in homes and households, and the conclusion that we’re reaching at least is if you’re fully vaccinated, you kind of require a higher degree of close contact to get COVID, to get infected with COVID. And of course, that high degree of contact happens when you’re living with someone and sharing bathrooms and sharing space and having meals together.” 

Three people are being treated for the virus at Bartlett Regional Hospital. 

The Juneau school district reports that two people have tested positive for COVID-19 and were infectious while at school, one at Sítʼ Eetí Shaanáx̱ Glacier Valley and one at Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé. All classes at both schools are still operating as usual. 

According to Juneau Public Health, most of the positive cases coming out of the school district are showing up in elementary schools, among kids who can’t be vaccinated yet. 

Statewide, the health department identified 634 new cases of COVID-19 and six deaths, four residents and two nonresidents. So far, 431 Alaskans and 13 nonresidents visiting the state have died from COVID-19. 

While the city doesn’t have a lot of detailed information about new cases of COVID-19, Juneau Public Health did share some general trends including that one of the mines has an outbreak. There are also active cases in some local congregate living facilities. 

In a city media release, public health officials wrote that there have also been some positive cases on small and large cruise ships. 

So far, Barr said the city hasn’t seen a lot of impact from those types of cases. Just one patient has had to be medevaced so far. 

“The populations of cruise ships are highly vaccinated, and vaccinated people are much less likely to require hospital levels of care,” Barr said. “They have, so far, been able to successfully quarantine and isolate on board, whatever the situation has been on any given cruise ship.”

Seven of the 10 cruise ships coming into town for the rest of Juneau’s cruise season are currently being investigated by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, either because of the number of passengers and crew who have tested positive for COVID-19 or because the ship didn’t submit regular epidemiological reports to the CDC. 

But Barr said emergency officials don’t believe that cruise ships are driving Juneau’s high COVID-19 cases. 

“The case activity that we’re seeing right now, by all accounts, is our own,” he said.

This story has been updated with more information about the cases reported Tuesday.

A barge struck the Douglas Bridge in Juneau on Wednesday.

Terry Tavel was eating lunch at Bill Overstreet Park near the whale statue that’s below the concrete span. She says the barge was sideways in Gastineau Channel and dangerously close to the waterfront.

“I immediately ran out of the picnic shelter because I thought it was just going to wipe it out,” she said.

Tavel, a Coast Guard-licensed captain, says the crew did an admirable job fighting the current to keep the vessel from running into the park.

“However, he was still pretty sideways and as he went, the current was sucking them under the bridge,” she said.

The skipper reversed engines, but the port side of the barge’s ramp support on the bow hit the bottom of the bridge causing visible damage to both the bridge and the boat, she said.

The Coast Guard confirmed it’s looking into reports of a bridge collision involving a tugboat, the Columbia Layne, and barge at around 1 p.m. Wednesday.

The Alaska Department of Transportation confirmed that it was the same vessel that collided with the Douglas Bridge on August 5, 2020. That barge is owned by Juneau-based Channel Construction. The company hasn’t yet returned a call seeking more information about the collision.

The Columbia Layne was also involved in a 2016 incident in British Columbia when the barge it was pulling sank while carrying a load of sand and gravel through the Inside Passage.

The Coast Guard says it’s investigating the latest collision. Officials didn’t immediately say whether Channel Construction was cited for the 2020 collision.

The state’s Department of Transportation maintains the Douglas Bridge and has dispatched its own team to check for damage.

“Basically what would happen at this point is the bridge engineers and the maintenance operations team would go out and inspect — just to see if there’s any structural damage,” said DOT spokesperson Sam Dapcevich.

He said a team from the state is likely on its way to the bridge now. The last time this happened, inspectors got a GoPro and hooked it up to see underneath the bridge.

“They crawled through the bridge and looked for cracks, even hairline cracks,” he said.

This is a developing story and will be updated as information becomes available.

As hospitals throughout the Pacific Northwest struggle to house and transfer patients, Bartlett Regional Hospital is suspending “non-urgent” procedures. 

The move is in response to the current surge of COVID-19 cases requiring hospital treatment, according to a media release. Juneau is averaging more than 17 new cases a day this month. 

In August alone, three people died of COVID-19 at the hospital, and there has been a steady stream of patients who need hospital treatment due to the virus. 

Bartlett is also having difficulty filling positions, according to a report from Juneau’s Emergency Operations Center.

On Friday, the hospital announced that it is changing its policy for visitors. People admitted to the hospital can have two visitors. People who are receiving outpatient care can have one. Obstetrics patients can have two visitors. No one is allowed to visit people in the Emergency Department unless certain criteria are met. 

This is the second time over the course of the pandemic that the hospital has suspended elective procedures. The first time, state public health authorities asked hospitals to do it because of Alaska’s limited healthcare capacity. 

In an updated media release, hospital leadership say they are evaluating all surgery with post-operation hospital stays to determine how urgent they are, then they’ll suspend the ones that are less-urgent.  They’ll make certain exceptions and re-evaluate the suspension once a week, according to the release.

Update: This story has been updated to reflect Bartlett Regional Hospital’s revised policy on non-urgent procedures.

A Juneau man in his 50s died of COVID-19 at Bartlett Regional Hospital on Wednesday. He’s the third person in Juneau to die from the virus this month.

On Thursday the city reported 27 new residents and nonresidents have tested positive for the virus. City officials said most of the new cases are residents. Six people got infected from someone who has also tested positive for the virus, three from community spread and they’re still investigating the rest.

There are also five non-resident cases including four people who work in mining and one in tourism.

During the first week of school the Juneau School District has reported nine people who have tested positive for COVID-19 and were infectious while at school: three at Auke Bay Elementary, one at Harborview Elementary, one at Sayeik: Gastineau Elementary, one at Sit’ Eeti Shannax Glacier Valley elementary and three at Thunder Mountain High School.

The school district reports that contact tracing is still happening. People who may have been exposed in the schools are being contacted directly and given instructions to quarantine and or test. Currently two classrooms are closed, but the rest are open.

So far, 1,871 Juneau residents have tested positive for the virus and 227 nonresidents. There are 186 active cases and four people with the virus are being treated at Bartlett Regional Hospital.

Statewide 686 new people have tested positive for COVID-19, including 55 nonresidents.

Late last week, federal health officials approved a third dose of the COVID-19 vaccine for people who have compromised immune systems. 

There’s a specific list of people who qualify and it’s a relatively narrow slice of the public. But after that announcement, Juneau residents went looking for that third shot.

Alison Gottschlich, a nurse with Juneau public health, says they got a lot of calls this week.

“It made it a little bit complicated that the announcement came out on like, Friday evening, basically,” Gottschlich said. “So then, you know, starting Monday morning, it was like, people just sort of are like, okay, I’m ready for my third dose. And we’re like, wait, it’s not quite that simple.”

But it turns out there aren’t actually many places in town you can get one. Juneau Public Health is waiting on an updated medical directive — basically an approval from the state health department.

Even more confusing: You can make an online appointment for that third dose at Juneau Public Health.

“Yeah, so for folks who have already … the system that we use, those IT folks are really on it and went ahead and updated that that software system to include an option for a third dose,” Gottschlich said. “So that it’s a little bit just making things a little bit complicated because now there’s that option to register for your third dose, even though we can’t technically provide it yet.”

Gottschlich says if you call around to your primary care doctor, you might not have much luck here either. 

“A lot of the doctor’s offices in town had sort of stopped providing COVID vaccine, so we’re hoping that they will start ordering additional doses so they can get their clients vaccinated with those third doses,” she said.

So where can you get a third dose?

There are three places in Juneau currently offering them for immunocompromised people. Juneau Urgent Care and Genoa Healthcare have Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. Capstone Clinic at the airport only has Pfizer.

Juneau Urgent Care wants people to call first — 907-790-4111. They’re asking people to self-identify which category of immunocompromised they fall into, though you won’t have to prove it. 

And Genoa Healthcare reports that people can make appointments online. They have Pfizer every day of the week and Moderna on Fridays.