The state health department flagged 72 new COVID-19 cases in Juneau on Tuesday. That is the highest number of cases for one day that the City and Borough of Juneau has seen for the entire pandemic.
Sixty-three residents and nine nonresidents were newly identified, but there isn’t much more information available than that.
Juneau’s emergency operations planning chief Robert Barr says that the high case count may be because the state health department is behind in reporting new cases.
“They have been backed up, they’re playing data catch up. You know, there aren’t case counts reported over the weekend, so we do see bigger single-day case counts on Mondays and Tuesdays because of the data backlog,” Barr said.
Barr says Wednesday’s case counts may be high as well, but the Emergency Operations Center isn’t making any plans yet to raise the community’s risk level.
“We do still talk with public health every day, and the numbers that we are seeing, we’re still cautiously optimistic that the actual number of new cases due to instances of community spread are decreasing or at least staying steady,” he said.
The city now gets a lot less information from the Juneau Public Health Center about new cases, so it’s difficult to track exactly how people are getting COVID-19.
But Barr says a lot of the new cases are coming from secondary transmission — meaning people are catching it from someone who has already tested positive for the virus.
“No case is a good case, but it’s better to see secondary transmission that we know about representing the bulk of our case activity than community transmission,” Barr said.
Data shows that spike in secondary transmission cases is being driven by the delta variant. Essentially, people who are sick with that variant have higher levels of the virus in their systems.
“If you have someone who’s sick at home, it’s next to impossible to not spread it to everyone else who’s living in that household because delta is so much more contagious,” he said.
Some of Juneau’s cases are breakthrough infections — that is, fully vaccinated people who are catching COVID-19.
“That’s true that we do see that,” Barr said. “But we primarily see that in homes and households, and the conclusion that we’re reaching at least is if you’re fully vaccinated, you kind of require a higher degree of close contact to get COVID, to get infected with COVID. And of course, that high degree of contact happens when you’re living with someone and sharing bathrooms and sharing space and having meals together.”
Three people are being treated for the virus at Bartlett Regional Hospital.
The Juneau school district reports that two people have tested positive for COVID-19 and were infectious while at school, one at Sítʼ Eetí Shaanáx̱ Glacier Valley and one at Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé. All classes at both schools are still operating as usual.
According to Juneau Public Health, most of the positive cases coming out of the school district are showing up in elementary schools, among kids who can’t be vaccinated yet.
Statewide, the health department identified 634 new cases of COVID-19 and six deaths, four residents and two nonresidents. So far, 431 Alaskans and 13 nonresidents visiting the state have died from COVID-19.
While the city doesn’t have a lot of detailed information about new cases of COVID-19, Juneau Public Health did share some general trends including that one of the mines has an outbreak. There are also active cases in some local congregate living facilities.
In a city media release, public health officials wrote that there have also been some positive cases on small and large cruise ships.
So far, Barr said the city hasn’t seen a lot of impact from those types of cases. Just one patient has had to be medevaced so far.
“The populations of cruise ships are highly vaccinated, and vaccinated people are much less likely to require hospital levels of care,” Barr said. “They have, so far, been able to successfully quarantine and isolate on board, whatever the situation has been on any given cruise ship.”
Seven of the 10 cruise ships coming into town for the rest of Juneau’s cruise season are currently being investigated by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, either because of the number of passengers and crew who have tested positive for COVID-19 or because the ship didn’t submit regular epidemiological reports to the CDC.
But Barr said emergency officials don’t believe that cruise ships are driving Juneau’s high COVID-19 cases.
“The case activity that we’re seeing right now, by all accounts, is our own,” he said.
This story has been updated with more information about the cases reported Tuesday.
