A Year Later: Alaska Pioneer Homes Face New Covid Outbreaks

HERE WE GO AGAIN 

Covid Spreading Through Fairbanks & Palmer Pioneer Homes 

In Ketchikan Pioneer Home, 5 Recent Deaths 

Five staff and two residents of the Pioneer Home in Palmer have come down with Covid-19 as of the end of August. Meanwhile, at the Fairbanks Pioneer Home, four staff and four residents tested positive for Covid-19 earlier in the month. 

And at Ketchikan's Pioneer Home, 12 residents and 5 staff members tested positive for Covid. Five residents died, though Covid-19 has not been confirmed as the cause of the deaths. 

Nursing homes were the first places where Covid-19 first showed up, back in the winter and spring of 2020. The first strong indicator that Covid-19 was a killer of the elderly surfaced on February 28th, 2020. A woman who was a resident at a King County, Washington long care facility died. There were 129 cases of Covid at the nursing home, including 81 residents, 34 staff members, and 14 visitors. Twenty-three people died in that single outbreak. 

A "Pioneer Home" is an assisted living residence that goes back, in Alaska, to 1903. It's state-owned and operated. Alaska is the only state in the union that has such facilities. There are six Pioneer Homes in Alaska – in Fairbanks, Anchorage, Sitka, Juneau, Palmer and Ketchikan. The homes are administered by the Department of Health & Social Services. 

Currently, according to Governor Mike Dunleavy, there is almost no ability in Alaska hospitals to aid  any kind of desperate patient, including those in car wrecks or bear maulings  – not to mention any new Covid-19 patients.