The Haines Borough hosted a virtual Town Hall meeting to update the community on its response to the COVID-19 threat. The Haines Emergency Operations Committee has taken on two new tasks: an economic recovery branch and a food security task force.
EOC Incident Commander Carolann Wootton acknowledged that preventative health measures cause a financial strain.
“We all recognize that the measures that we’ve had to take to mitigate this pandemic has had an impact in a negative way on our economy and so the EOC this week, we added in a new section under operations, which is devoted completely to recovery and by recovery, I mean economic recovery,” she said.
The economic recovery team consists of Sean Gaffney, Wendell Harren, Tracey Harmon and Margaret Friendauer.
Additionally, the EOC staff will be joined by individuals from the Haines Borough School District and the Salvation Army to tackle food security in Haines. Wootton said the EOC has a plan and will present it to the Assembly at their meeting next week.
Haines Health Clinic Medical Director Lylith Widmer said clinic staff will defer their leave for 90 days to address the public health concern. Most non-emergency medical appointments will be conducted by telephone or video to limit physical contact. Prenatal care and immunizations for children will still take place at the clinic. Home visits may be arranged for elders.
Widmer said clinic staff is working with the Haines EOC to prepare for a possible surge of patients.
“In the clinic [we are] are well prepared and have been doing regular case simulations and training sessions since February some of which have included the main Volunteer Fire [Department] staff,” she said.
Haines Health Clinic has one negative pressure room for isolating a contagious patient; it is constructing another. The clinic has two ventilators on site. As of Tuesday there have been no confirmed COVID-19 cases in the Haines Borough.
