The fire department is continuing to hand out free, at-home COVID-19 test kits as the community’s level of new cases declines after a record-breaking January.
Starting Dec. 30 and continuing through Jan. 30, the borough reported 185 cases in the community, the worst outbreak by far of the pandemic. Since then, the borough has reported 13 new infections, including six reported on Monday evening.
As of Monday, the fire department still had 325 test kits, said Capt. Dorianne Sprehe. A shipment of an additional 242 boxes is on the way from the state warehouse in Anchorage, she said.
Each kit contains two at-home tests.
As of early this week, the borough had received about 2,000 test kits, going back to the week before Christmas.
Individuals should call the fire hall at 907-874-3223 to arrange a pickup of the kits for their household.
Wrangell was not alone in a record-setting surge after the holidays. State health officials on Monday reported almost 61,000 new infections over the past 30 days — more than one-quarter of all the cases in Alaska since the pandemic started two years ago.
At its peak in late January and early February, Alaska’s rate of new cases per capita was the highest among the 50 states, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. State health officials attribute the steep increase in new infections to the highly transmissible Omicron variant of the virus, which put several communities into record territory.
The rate of new cases, however, is declining in Alaska, with 11,000 infections reported over the past seven days on Monday.
In Wrangell, the post-holidays surge represents almost half of the 415 cases reported in town since the pandemic tally started two years ago.
Wrangell Medical Center is no longer offering walk-up testing at the entrance to the hospital. That state-funded program ended Jan. 31, not only in Wrangell but across Alaska.
Separate from the at-home kits, people who need testing must make an appointment. SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium, the hospital operator, will bill an individual's insurer first and cover the shortfall if insurance doesn’t fully cover the cost of testing.
Individuals are increasingly relying on at-home tests, rather than going to testing sites, which health officials said means there are likely a lot more infections in communities that are not recorded and reported with the state numbers.
The Wrangell borough’s announcements have included the advisory: “Please note that the cases that we report are only the cases that have been reported to us and do not include at-home positive tests.”
Statewide vaccination rates have not changed much in recent weeks: 69% of eligible Alaskans have received at least one dose of a vaccine, 62% have gotten two shots, and 26% have received a booster, according to the state website on Monday.
The rates for Wrangell are 67%, 64% and 35%.
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