Chilkat Valley News - Serving Haines and Klukwan, Alaska since 1966

Haines’ first case of COVID-19 has been classified as “community spread.”

After conducting a contact tracing investigation, the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS) classifies every COVID-19 case as either travel-related, secondary, or community spread. Cases are categorized as travel-related if the patient is believed to have contracted the disease from travel outside the state, secondary if the patient is a confirmed close contact of another Alaskan case, and community spread if the source of transmission is unknown.

Because the Haines case has been categorized community spread, it suggests the patient’s “exposure was potentially an undiagnosed case within the community or an unnamed connection to another confirmed case,” the Haines Borough Emergency Operations Center said in a press release on Monday, June 15.

The male patient received a test in the tent screening site at the Haines clinic on June 3 after displaying symptoms and was instructed to self-isolate while waiting for results.

The borough and the Haines Health Center are encouraging residents to keep up social-distancing and hygiene practices to help mitigate the disease’s spread.

“I would recommend people continue to wear face coverings in public, hand wash and disinfect surfaces, maintain social distancing in all interactions, and stay home when they are sick,” Haines Health Center medical director Lylith Widmer said.

DHSS estimates the onset of the patient’s illness was May 29.