City Manager Mike Tvenge briefed the City of Kodiak City Council last night on the COVID-19 spread emerging in Kodiak during their regular meeting. According to him, COVID is once again upright and walking in Kodiak.
“The EOC reported today 32 active cases as of the last seven days, we’ve had a small interruption in reporting from public health, which is the source of information for the EOC. And so, we’ve got 32 cases in the last seven days. More cases have been reported to public health this afternoon. So, the EOC expects to update the case count again tomorrow,” Tvenge said.
The Kodiak Emergency Operations Center, or EOC, is ramping up its regular briefing schedule in anticipation of worsening spread, according to Tvenge.
“Beginning tomorrow, July 23, the EOC will provide updates three days a week- now we’ve been just updating once a week with low numbers we’ve had, but with the recent uptick, we’re going to report Monday, Wednesday and Friday until further notice,” Tvenge said.
Tvenge also told city councilmembers that the EOC was looking to return specific details of the cases back into the briefings- such as test date of the infected, and whether the case was community spread, close contact, or travel related. The city doesn’t yet have information on whether the cases are Delta-variant COVID-19, but it’s not beyond the pale.
“Though those numbers aren’t reported individually back to us locally, the state has those numbers, the Delta variant is in Alaska. But we don’t know yet if it’s in Kodiak- we can make assumptions. But we’re working on learning that data ourselves so that we can report, but just be aware that this variant is highly contagious. It does spread more rapidly than the previous SARS COVID virus. And we should all be taking precautions; I’d recommend wearing a mask in public places right now myself. We’re going to see a big spike again tomorrow in our reporting,” Tvenge said.
This rang true midday Friday as the EOC announced that the tally is now up to 44 active cases, with a new case currently being hospitalized in Kodiak. This brings Kodiak to 1184 cases since the start of the pandemic, with 50 hospitalizations to date.