The Haines SEARHC clinic. (Photo by Henry Leasia)
The Haines Borough is discussing options for expanding the availability of COVID-19 testing locally. As KHNS’ Henry Leasia reports, the Haines Borough Assembly will consider allocating $100,000 in federal funds towards the effort.
In most cases Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium (SEARHC) does not offer COVID-19 tests to patients who don’t exhibit symptoms of the illness. Over the past week, four new cases have been discovered in the Haines Borough.
Lylith Widmer is the medical director of the SEARHC clinic in Haines. During a town hall meeting earlier this month, she gave a run down of the symptoms that the clinic is looking for before they offer a test to a patient. Those include: fever, chills, cough, shortness of breath, difficulty breathing, diarrhea, diminished sense of smell or taste, fatigue, headache, rash, muscle aches, runny nose and sore throat.
According to Widmer, there are some exceptions.
Clinic staff are getting tested every two weeks regardless of whether they are showing symptoms. Residents of long-term care facilities and people who are at high risk of exposure such as emergency responders may get tested even if they are asymptomatic.
“We are, in general, working to make more broad asymptomatic testing available,” Widmer said. “We will honor vouchers for testing dispensed by the state of Alaska for travelers. If you desire asymptomatic testing but don’t fall into one of these categories that I’ve listed, please feel free to contact the clinic, set up an appointment and discuss this further with one of our providers.”
Recently, the State of Alaska offered travelers entering the state from outside some options to forego a 14-day quarantine upon arrival. Instead, they can now bring proof of a negative result from a test taken within three days of their departure. Or, they can get tested upon arrival and quarantine until they get their results.
This week, the Haines Borough Assembly will vote on a spending plan for over $2 million worth of federal COVID-19 relief funds. $100,000 of it would go towards asymptomatic testing.
At a meeting last week, assembly member Brenda Josephson said the difficult part would be determining who would be eligible for the tests.
“I don’t want to just test anyone at any time for any reason because it could be very expensive,” Josephson said. “If someone is traveling and they’ve come in from out of state and they have the option to have the state voucher, I want them using the state voucher. I think we need to have rules over who can be tested,”
All of Alaska’s major airports provide free testing for new arrivals and the state offers vouchers online that will pay for travelers to get tested at a clinic or hospital.
Haines Borough Tourism Director Steven Auch suggested that the borough could offer similar vouchers to people entering Haines from other areas of Alaska. Other communities like Wrangell have allocated federal funds to pay for testing at fish processing facilities.
At the end of the meeting the committee decided to request that the Haines Emergency Operations Center research options for testing Haines residents making short trips to other areas of Alaska like Juneau.
