State health officials reported recently a case of a coronavirus variant in parts of south-central Alaska. The variant was first detected in South Africa. Other variants found recently this year in Alaska include a variant identified in the United Kingdom and one from Brazil. Because of that, and the potential for a fourth wave of coronavirus hitting the U.S., health officials are expressing concern.
Central Peninsula Hospital’s External Affairs Director Bruce Richards spoke to KSRM, “I think it’s the B.1.1.8 variant, which is the Brazilian variant showed up in February. I don’t have any confirmation that there’s any here, but I don’t take that as a good sign. It’s a pretty nasty variant of the COVID and everybody knows that Brazil is really struggling with over 4,000 people a day dying there. These variants are, some of them are pretty bad and this seems to be one of the worst ones.”
Because of the rise in COVID-19 cases across the Kenai Peninsula, Heritage Place Skilled Nursing Facility had to close again. “We had some positive staff people at Heritage Place and so under the CDC guidelines that they’re required to follow, they have had to close Heritage Place to visitation and basically go back into a lockdown type situation. So, yep, I can confirm that is the case.”
Richards says usually a spike follows a recent holiday where families and friends gathered. He said, “You know, we went for quite sometime without having any (covid cases) and now we’re starting to see them show up 1s or 2s kind of thing. It doesn’t necessarily mean that they are here because of COVID, but they are COVID positive. Definitely seeing an uptick in the number of positive cases on the peninsula. Amongst our staff even, just like everybody else, we’re seeing that uptick. I just would encourage people to get vaccinated and we can try to get ahead of this before it really takes hold.”
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