Juneau’s Wildflower Court reports virus outbreak, most staff and residents vaccinated

Wildflower Court is a non-profit, 57-resident long-term-care facility in Juneau. (Photo by Ed Schoenfeld/CoastAlaska)
Wildflower Court is a non-profit, 57-resident long-term-care facility in Juneau. (Photo by Ed Schoenfeld/CoastAlaska)

Juneau’s Wildflower Court nursing home has an outbreak of COVID-19 among staff and residents, including some who have been fully vaccinated against the virus.

Administrator Ruth Johnson says two staff members tested positive last week. They put that part of the home in isolation and tested staff and residents. 

“They’re all asymptomatic, nobody is sick,” she said. “We had two more staff members show up positive as well and neither of them are sick either.”

Johnson says 70% of the patients and staff have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 already and 80% have had at least their first shot of the vaccine. 

“Several of these positives, people were exposed after their second vaccine,” she said. 

Johnson says they may be seeing in real-time, what some state and federal medical officials have been saying since the vaccines became available. 

If you are vaccinated against COVID-19, it will most likely keep you from getting sick. But, it may not keep you from carrying the virus and infecting someone else. 

This is the first outbreak among patients at Wildflower Court and Johnson says she is grateful that so many residents have been vaccinated. 

“It’s a huge relief because the data we’ve seen so far in the Pfizer vaccine is that it’s 95% effective in preventing disease. Five percent who did experience COVID after being fully vaccinated did not get seriously ill. So they’re saying it’s 100% effective at preventing serious illness,” she said.

Bartlett Hospital Infection Preventionist Charlee Gribbon said it’s entirely possible that people who have been partially or even fully vaccinated can still pass the virus around. 

The vaccine works by giving your immune system a way to identify the virus that causes COVID-19. 

“So we know that it takes a while for your immune system to do the work and produce the antibodies that actually protect you,” Gribbon said. 

And for people who have had one dose of the vaccine but not the second? Gribbon said they’re not fully protected. 

“We know that after one dose from the studies that people get between 50-80% protection. So in real life, that means if you’re exposed 10 times, you’re going to fight it off between five and eight times,” she said. 

Ultimately, vaccines aren’t supposed to eliminate COVID-19 entirely. 

“As is the case with all coronaviruses that cause the common cold … they’re still circulating, just not causing destructive disease where it gets people really sick,” she said. 

This is the first outbreak among patients at Wildflower Court and Johnson said she is grateful that so many residents have been vaccinated because it’s less likely that they’ll get a serious illness.

Wildflower Court is divided into four separate areas. They call them neighborhoods. And right now, the outbreak is confined to one neighborhood — she said no one is going between neighborhoods right now. 

And they stopped putting multiple people in rooms at the beginning of the pandemic. That means people can isolate themselves in their own rooms if they do get sick.

This story has been updated.

Rashah McChesney

Daily News Editor

I help the newsroom establish daily news priorities and do hands-on editing to ensure a steady stream of breaking and enterprise news for a local and regional audience.

Sign up for The Signal

Top Alaska stories delivered to your inbox every week

Read next

Site notifications
Update notification options
Subscribe to notifications