With 1,153 boxes of two tests each piled up at the fire hall, there were enough COVID-19 self-tests available as of last Friday for more than the entire population of Wrangell to check for the virus at home.
The tests are still available for free, though it can be days in between requests, said Wrangell Fire Department Capt. Dorianne Sprehe last Friday.
Initially, during the Omicron wave of infections that hit the country last fall, at-home test kits were in short supply. Eventually, supply caught up with demand, and now demand has fallen back as infection rates are in decline and people have scaled back their self-testing.
After a post-holiday surge in Wrangell of new infections that dwindled in February, the borough as of Monday had reported one positive case on March 16, three cases on March 15, one case on Feb. 28 and one case on Feb. 23.
Those six cases represent a significant decline from 21 cases in the first two weeks of February, and a post-holidays record surge of 185 cases Dec. 30 to Jan. 30.
The six cases in the past 30 days only reflect numbers reported to the borough — the numbers do not reflect the results of at-home tests.
SEARHC has operated the main testing sites in Wrangell since the pandemic started two years ago. As of Monday, the borough reported 435 COVID infections in town since the count started.
The state in the past two years reported seven hospitalizations in Wrangell, with six of those and one death around the holiday months.
SEARHC did not reply to a request for comment from the Sentinel as of Monday.
In what may be a move to an “endemic phase,” the borough on March 17 announced it will no longer report new COVID case numbers.
“The COVID-19 cases that are coming in are fewer and fewer, thankfully!” Borough Clerk Kim Lane wrote in an email. “Public Health has ceased all contact tracing and contacting of positive cases. SEARHC is not able to directly report COVID cases because of privacy concerns. With that information, along with the availability of at-home testing, we will no longer be reporting out new COVID cases. As we move into this endemic phase, we are hopeful that the cases remain low.”
If the borough sees a spike in cases, the emergency operations center can reassess the situation, she said.
A similar situation happened with the Delta variant last summer — equipment was washed down and put away and then cases started spiking again, Sprehe said, so they brought the equipment back out.
She said requests for test kits have dwindled. A state-funded program to offer walk-up testing at the entrance to Wrangell Medical Center ended Jan. 31, and a fire safety trailer conscripted for tests in the parking lot, on loan from the fire department, was wheeled back to the Public Safety Building parking lot last week.
The plan is to spruce up the trailer and use it for safety training again, including a program at the schools in May.
The trailer will be washed and the carpet will be replaced with laminate flooring, then it will go back into service as the department’s fire prevention trailer, Sprehe said. Fire department staff will demonstrate safe cooking practices, how to escape a smoky room and how to feel a door to see if it’s hot, meaning a fire is behind it, all “part of our previous annual fire prevention program.”
No one paid rent for the trailer, Sprehe said, “We’re just cool like that.”
The trailer had been used at the hospital since April 2020.
The state continues to report COVID statistics. Statewide, the two-year pandemic tally as of Friday was 3,843 hospitalizations and 1,202 deaths.
Statewide vaccination rates as of Friday for age 5 and up stood at 65% with one shot, 60% with two shots and 27% with a third-dose booster.
Wrangell in the same age category was trending better than the state as of Friday: 67% with one shot, 64% with two, 36% with three doses.
In adults 18 and older, the vaccination rate in Wrangell as of Friday was 74% with one dose, 71% with two, and 43% with three doses.
According to SEARHC, the health care consortium has administered almost 3,500 first, second and third shots from Dec. 1, 2020, to March 14, 2022, in Wrangell.
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