[ad_1]
This story has been updated: Amid one of nation’s worst COVID-19 outbreaks, Anchorage officials say they are rationing testing
The company that runs municipal Anchorage coronavirus testing sites is cutting its hours this week, even as the city continues to experience some of the highest COVID-19 transmission rates in the country.
Visit Healthcare, the city’s testing contractor, is cutting its hours starting Friday. Schedules released by the company show that three of its testing sites – at the Midtown Anchorage Library, Muldoon Community Assembly and Changepoint Church – will be open two or three fewer hours per day.
The change comes as Visit Healthcare’s COVID-19 testing contract is expected to expire at the end of the month.
RELATED: Anchorage’s multi-million dollar testing, vaccination contracts in limbo as Bronson administration considers options
The multi-million dollar contract began in July 2020 under the administration of former mayor Ethan Berkowitz. Officials in the administration of new Mayor Dave Bronson have said city-sponsored testing and vaccination will continue, but add that they are considering changes to elements of their programs.
Visit Healthcare said the cuts totaled 108 hours per week. A company official, Emily Oestreicher, said in an email that he hoped to continue his testing work.
“Visit Healthcare has no intention of terminating its contract with the Municipality of Anchorage and we have not been made aware of any plans by the Municipality to do so,” she said, adding that the company had tested and vaccinated thousands of people in the city. “We are proud to have had a significant impact on the safety and well-being of this community. “
Anchorage’s testing policy, posted recently on a city-sponsored website, also went from encouraging symptom-free residents to get tested to saying that the city’s testing sites should only be used by people with no symptoms. people with symptoms of COVID-19 and close contacts of infected people.
Bronson administration officials said any new test plan, or an extension to Visit Healthcare’s contract, will need to be presented at next week’s Assembly meeting to give members ample time for the approve before the expiration of the existing contract. No proposal was on the meeting’s agenda when it was released on Wednesday, although it could be added in the coming days.
In a prepared statement sent through a spokesperson, Anchorage Health Director Joe Gerace said the department was cutting hours to ensure Visit Healthcare’s current contract budget lasts. until the end of the month.
Anchorage continues to record hundreds of coronavirus cases per day, with a 10% positive test rate.
This places the city at a “high” level of community transmission of the virus, according to indicators used by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
All three Anchorage hospitals are currently operating to crisis care standards, as the extra-contagious delta variant filled intensive care units and put stress on staff and bed space.
“If there is a reduction in hours, it seems to make very little sense. The more so as many members of the Assembly, at the request of the community, contented themselves with pleading for an extension of the services, because the lines spanned the car parks and it took hours to pass a test ”, declared Meg Zaletel, member of the Assembly. “We know that with the current high transmission rate of COVID in our community, testing needs to be easily accessible and convenient for people to use. “
She added, “We need to have COVID testing right now, more than ever, and reducing this service doesn’t make sense to me. “
Bronson, a conservative elected earlier this year, questioned the advice of scientists and doctors on coronaviruses. And he blamed the vaccination warrants, not the virus, for the stress on the city’s healthcare system – although data released by Alaska hospitals shows very few workers, so far, were fired for refusing the injections.
Bronson has refused to be vaccinated against COVID-19 himself. He has also vigorously opposed mask warrants and corporate restrictions, and in a recent public appearance he endorsed treatments for unproven coronaviruses like ivermectin.
At the same time, a protracted and caustic debate is unfolding among the city’s elected officials over a proposed mask mandate: many members of the Assembly support the idea, but Bronson and his supporters vigorously opposed it, the critics delivering hours of testimony on the last week.
[ad_2]
Source link