As record case numbers continue to be reported in Kodiak, it’s becoming more and more apparent that Kodiak is in the thralls of its largest ever wave of COVID. According to Amy Corder, incident commander for the COVID response of the Providence Kodiak Island Medical Center, COVID is going to be spreading quickly for the next few weeks.
“We are cautiously hopeful that by the end of this month, we will be seeing the tip of the peak and hopefully be coming down. But I think it’s still too soon to say that because throughout the country, I haven’t seen anywhere coming down- and if you look at the British models, they’re still staying up pretty high. So they haven’t had quite as fast a fall as we had anticipated,” Corder said.
Corder says local hospitalizations are also expected to rise accordingly. With more vaccinated health workers testing positive, she says that the strain on the local and state hospital systems will be intense. Just last week, the Kodiak medical center announced that visitations would become more limited, and outpatient services may have more limited availability based on staffing.
“Omicron seems like it is transmitting faster. So instead of five days after exposure, where you start showing symptoms, people are usually two or three days after exposure, starting to show symptoms. So you see those spikes come a lot faster, because people are testing sooner, but it’s also much more transmissible, so more people are getting it,” Corder said.
In addition to wearing masks indoors, Corder says that it’s time to consider shrinking social circles to avoid spreading COVID-19.