After the number of people taking COVID-19 tests in Wrangell slowed down earlier in the summer, the volume doubled in August as the community reacted to the surge of new infections in town.
The borough reported 48 cases of COVID-19 in Wrangell in August, the highest monthly total since the pandemic count started in March 2020 and more than one-third of all cases in the community since the Coronavirus tally began.
The SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium, which provides tests at the airport and the Wrangell Medical Center, administered 753 tests in May, then 580 in June and 488 in July, said Carly Allen, hospital administrator at WMC.
The count jumped to 997 in August, she said.
The number of tests declined in the first nine days of September, Allen said.
Wrangell went from two COVID-19 cases in May to six each in June and July, before breaking the record with 48 in August.
September has started with just five reported cases, as of Tuesday.
Drive-up COVID testing at the hospital is by appointment only, though Allen said people most always can get a same-day time slot.
SEARHC also provides free testing at the airport twice a day, when the Alaska Airlines flights arrive, under a contract with the state. That agreement is scheduled to end Sept. 30, but the state has reached out to SEARHC to extend the contract to the end of the year, Allen said.
The health care provider has administered almost 18,000 tests in Wrangell since March 2020.
“I think that’s one of the best things Wrangell has going for it,” Allen said of the community’s access and willingness to get tested.
While the infection count has dropped in Wrangell — the state reported the rate of positive COVID-19 tests last week averaged less than 2% a day — other communities are not so fortunate. The Kenai Peninsula Borough averaged about 14% positive tests a day, according to the state.
A clinic in Kenai reported administering 150 tests a day last week. “About 45% of those people that are being tested are reporting active symptoms, and then 20% of those are reporting exposure,” an official of the clinic told public radio station KDLL.
Another good thing for Wrangell is that the medical center last month started offering monoclonal antibody infusion for higher-risk individuals, Allen said. Offering the treatment locally was coincidental to the spike in cases in August, not directly because of the surge, she said.
The purpose of antibody treatments is to reduce a patient’s viral load and lessen the severity of the illness.
“Having a lower viral load means you may have milder symptoms, thereby decreasing the likelihood of you needing to stay in the hospital,” according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The treatment “may help people who … had symptoms for 10 days or less, (and) are at high risk of getting more serious symptoms.”
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