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ANCHORAGE (AP) - Three-time Super Bowl champion Mark Schlereth returned home to Alaska last week to encourage people to get the COVID-19 vaccine. The Service High School alumnus made a halftime appearance last Friday night during his alma mater’s game at West High School. “I just want to encourage everybody to do your part, to talk to your doctor and if it’s the right decision for you, please get vaccinated, please take care of one another,” Schlereth said Aug. 20. He has been advocating on social media for COVID-19 vaccines, and he said the NF...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. government has extended its ban on nonessential travel along the borders with Canada and Mexico to slow the spread of COVID-19 despite increasing pressure to lift the restriction and despite the fact that Canada opened its border to fully vaccinated Americans two weeks ago. U.S. border communities that are dependent on shoppers from Mexico and Canada and their political representatives have urged the Biden administration to lift the ban, complaining that it is crippling business. But the Department of Homeland S...
OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) - A universal mask mandate for indoor public spaces regardless of vaccination status went into effect in Washington state on Monday. Gov. Jay Inslee announced the expanded mask mandate last week. He also expanded the state’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate to all public school employees, in addition to employees at state colleges, and most child care and early learning providers. The mandates follow weeks of escalating COVID-19 case rates and increasing hospitalizations caused primarily by the Delta variant of the coronavirus. I...
WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. (AP) - All Navajo Nation executive branch employees will need to be fully vaccinated against the virus that causes COVID-19 by the end of September or be required to submit to regular testing, according to an executive order announced by President Jonathan Nez on Sunday. The new rules apply to full, part-time and temporary employees, including those working for tribal enterprises like utilities, shopping centers and casinos. Any worker who does not show proof of vaccination by Sept. 29 must be tested every two weeks or face...
The school board has decided to continue with its COVID-19 mitigation plan that requires students, staff and visitors to wear face masks in the buildings, though the policy will be reviewed again two weeks after classes begin. The plan approved at the board meeting Monday evening calls for review of the masking protocols on a monthly basis. Classes start Aug. 31. The next school board meeting is scheduled for Sept. 13. "Masks will be required for students, staff and guests while in school or at school events," the plan now reads. "During...
Statewide COVID-19 case counts continued climbing early this week, with Southeast communities some of the hardest hit — including Wrangell, with 11 new cases reported Monday and Tuesday. Because of the high case counts, state public health officials are unable to keep up with the contract tracing workload, and anyone who has been or may have been in close contact with an infected person should quarantine and get tested for COVID as soon as possible, Wrangell borough officials said Tuesday evening. “Whether vaccinated or unvaccinated, ple...
Petersburg schools will open Aug. 31 with face masks required for at least the first two weeks of the semester, reviewing the policy at the next school board meeting on Sept. 14. Based on the high count of active COVID-19 cases in Ketchikan, schools there would open Aug. 26 with face masks required of all students, staff and visitors under a draft back-to-school plan subject to school board approval. Ketchikan’s mask requirement would shift to optional when the active case count in the community drops to five or fewer. The count was 98 a...
Most of last year's runners are back for the high school cross-country team, with some freshmen joining the squad too, the coach said. Practice is underway and the first meet will be sometime in September. "It's really nice to have some younger kids join the team. I've got most of my kiddos back, so that's great," said coach Mykayla Rooney, in her second year. This year's team consists of 15 runners, but a few need to take their physicals before they can start running, Rooney said. "I only had...
The community group BRAVE (Building Respect and Valuing Everyone) is making plans for its fourth annual Family Resilience Fair, scheduled for noon to 2 p.m. Sept. 11 at the Nolan Center. The intent of the event “is to make people aware of the resources available” for dealing with stress, food insecurity, maintaining healthy relationships and more. “Learn how your community can help your family,” according to BRAVE. The event will include tables staffed by nonprofits, government agencies and service providers, said organizer Kay Larson. Admissio...
Bycatch gives Alaska’s otherwise stellar fisheries management its biggest black eye. The term refers to unwanted sea creatures taken in trawls, pots, lines and nets when boats are going after other targeted catches. Bycatch is the bane of existence for fishermen, seafood companies and policy makers alike, yet few significant advances have been found to mitigate the problem. A simple fix has recently shed light on a solution. “Ten underwater LED lights can be configured to light up different parts of the fishing gear with six different col...
TORONTO (AP) — The Canadian government will soon require all air travelers and passengers on interprovincial trains to be vaccinated against COVID-19. That includes all commercial air travelers, passengers on trains between provinces and cruise ship passengers, Transport Minister Omar Alghabra said Aug. 13. “As soon as possible in the fall and no later than the end of October, the government of Canada will require employees in the federally regulated air, rail and marine transportation sectors to be vaccinated. This includes all commercial air...
As the Delta variant spreads and as COVID-19 case counts climb throughout Alaska, more health care providers in the state are requiring that their workers get vaccinated. Full vaccination also will be required of students living in on-campus housing at the University of Alaska Southeast and at the university campus in Anchorage. The PeaceHealth hospital system, which operates the Ketchikan Medical Center, announced Aug. 3 that all caregivers will be required to be vaccinated against COVID-19 starting Aug. 31, unless they provide proof of a medi...
After leading the nation in vaccination rates earlier this year, Alaska has slipped to the bottom third among the 50 states. Alaska’s rate has not moved up much in the past couple of weeks, despite an increasing number of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations statewide since mid-July — numbers that have not been this high since last winter in some communities. The higher case count — averaging almost 300 a day in the past couple of weeks and approaching 400 on a few days — comes as students are returning to school, with administrators eager f...
Maybe you're curious how we decide which stories go into the Sentinel each week. Maybe not, but please read this anyway. Since you are turning the pages of the Sentinel at the moment, or reading it online, it would be good for you to know why some stories are in the paper you bought (or borrowed), and it would be good for us to know what you think is missing from the newspaper. There is nothing magical in selecting which news reports make it into the Sentinel. It's a combination of space to fit...
Tyson Messmer was among the high school swim team members practicing Friday in their first week of preparation for the season, which will start next month. Meets are tentatively planned for Ketchikan, Petersburg, Sitka and Juneau, culminating in the state tournament in early November. Most of the swim competition last year was virtual, due to COVID-19 travel and social-distancing restrictions, with the team racing in its home pool and sending in times to measure against other...
Wrangell’s Tent City Days is still a couple of months away, but organizers need volunteers to step up with event ideas so they can start putting together a schedule. The tentative dates are Oct. 14-17. Though the event, which started about 40 years ago, was created to celebrate the town’s gold rush history and provide a late-winter break from darkness and doldrums in February, organizers recently moved it to October and now are adding a different angle to the history lesson. “I would like to make it more of a learning time,” said Jillian...
Canada on Monday is lifting its prohibition on Americans crossing the border to shop, vacation or visit, but the United States is keeping similar restrictions in place for Canadians, part of a bumpy return to normalcy from COVID-19 travel bans. U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents must be both fully vaccinated and test negative for COVID-19 within three days to get across one of the world’s longest and busiest land borders. Travelers also must fill out a detailed on application on the arriveCAN app before crossing. The Canada Border S...
MIAMI (AP) - A federal judge has temporarily blocked a Florida law that prevents cruise lines from requiring passengers to prove they’re vaccinated against COVID-19, saying the law appears unconstitutional and won’t likely hold up in court. The “vaccine passport’’ ban signed into law in May by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis appears to violate the First Amendment rights of Norwegian Cruise Lines, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams wrote. In a nearly 60-page ruling issued late Sunday, the judge said Florida failed to “provide a valid evidentiary...
The 1,094-foot-long Norwegian Encore made history on Aug. 4 as it emerged from a cloudy curtain of rain to tie up in Ward Cove, about a 7-mile drive north of Ketchikan's downtown cruise ship dock. Before the ship pulled in, workers hurried to finish preparing the 57,000-square-foot cruise ship terminal for visitors, screwing smoke detectors into a restroom ceiling and drilling holes to install the last few rows of cable guardrails. As the first throng of passengers walked into what had been the...
ANCHORAGE (AP) - Gov. Mike Dunleavy has urged Alaskans to get vaccinated, amid a spike in COVID-19 cases driven by the Delta variant. “There is a safe, free and widely available tool to put COVID-19 in the rearview mirror,” Dunleavy said in a statement Aug. 4. “That tool is the vaccine.” Alaska has reported hundreds of new COVID-19 cases a day since mid-July, with several more deaths bringing the state close to 400 since the pandemic started 18 months ago. Infection rates and hospitalizations have been trending up. As of Monday, the vaccina...
After a one-day closure Friday due to staff exposure to an individual with COVID-19, the borough landfill will reopen Saturday for its normal business hours. City hall, which also closed to the public on Friday due to COVID exposure, will reopen Monday, according to a borough statement Friday afternoon. In announcing the closures Friday morning, the borough said they were acting "out of an abundance of caution to staff and the public." Borough officials on Thursday reported two new COVID-19 cases in Wrangell, bringing to seven the number of...
The Wrangell School District plans to start classes Aug. 30 with face masks required when staff and students are indoors — same as last year. The district is working under its COVID-19 mitigation plan, released in June, and will adapt it as needed, said Bill Burr, who took over as schools superintendent July 1. Burr said he has met with borough officials and the community’s health care provider, the SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium, “to try to get a cohesive plan all together.” Advance planning for how to respond as COVID case co...
Registration for the new school year will open online Wednesday. In-person registration will be offered 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Aug. 17 at the high school gym. Classes start Aug. 30. Teachers start back at work Aug. 25. Families registering their kids for school should not expect any big changes from last year, said Megan Powell, high school secretary. “It’s the same as last year, other than last year we didn’t do an in-person (registration) due to COVID,” she said. “It should be really easy for parents. I did it last year for my daughter and it wa...
Face masks are going back on in several communities across Alaska as health officials continue urging people to get vaccinated against COVID-19. The state reported more than 1,000 new cases of the coronavirus Friday through Tuesday, and almost 4,000 since mid-July, as the numbers have climbed to high-alert levels not seen since last January. Meanwhile, vaccination rates have not changed much, reaching 58% of all eligible Alaskans age 12 and older with at least one dose as of Tuesday, up from 57% a week ago. Alaska’s senior U.S. senator, Lisa M...
The Wrangell Borough has returned to requiring COVID-19 testing of unvaccinated travelers — locals and visitors — who arrive from out of state. The requirement had expired in June. The assembly approved the immediate reinstatement of testing at its July 27 meeting. The requirement will remain in place through Sept. 30. “Identifying positive cases through testing upon arrival from outside the state is still one of the most effective ways to keep the community safe from the virus being brought into town,” Borough Manager Lisa Von Bargen wrote i...
