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

The Haines Borough Emergency Operations Center (EOC) issued a press release on Facebook Wednesday evening stating that an asymptomatic woman who tested positive for COVID-19 last week participated in social activities while awaiting test results, that the woman’s close contacts had been identified and that one individual who was counseled to quarantine has refused to do so.

EOC incident commander Carolann Wooten did not return a call for comment. Thursday evening, the EOC sent out another press release that said “the potential risk is now resolved.”

Wooten clarified that “refusal” consisted of reports of a person seen outside their home when they shouldn’t have been, according to KHNS reporting.

The person the EOC said refused to self-quarantine is former borough manager and former EOC incident commander Debra Schnabel, who said she kept to herself at her home and office, with an admitted “lapse.”

Schnabel ate at the woman’s home before the individual was tested, according to an individual familiar with the incident. The woman took a test the following day, and tested positive for COIVD-19 the next day.

Schnabel visited two businesses after being notified that she was a close contact of the asymptomatic woman and traveled to and from her office after being told to self-quarantine.

Schnabel said public health nurse Elaine Hickey contacted her on Friday morning, told her that she had been in contact with someone who had tested positive and to self-quarantine for 14 days. Schnabel said she understood from Hickey that it was okay for her to go outside or to her office, as long as she maintained social distancing protocols. She received no written instructions, she said, and objected to fact that the EOC said she “had refused” to quarantine.

“I think that it’s an interesting use of the word. I am not refusing anything,” Schnabel said. “I think they’re (EOC members) coming from a place where they assumed I was told I could not leave my house. I was never told that. I was told I could. I was told I could walk to my office and back. I was told I could drive my car. I was never told I had to stay at home.”

Hickey keeps in touch with Schnabel regularly to monitor her for symptoms and health concerns, Schnabel said. Hickey told the CVN she is unable to talk about the specifics of any case, but outlined what she advises to all positive contacts. Although Alaska Department of Health and Human Services guidance states a person must stay home, not go to work and avoid public places for 14 days, Hickey said individual cases are unique.

“We ask people to quarantine for 14 days,” Hickey said. “Someone can be in a location outside of their home for certain circumstances if they are discussed with the nurse or if they’re going to isolate within that place they are located. With that said, that’s the recommendation. That is the guidance.”

The Centers for Disease Control and the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services both recommend 14-day quarantines for people who had contact with anyone who tests positive. “You should stay at home and self-quarantine for 14 days, starting from the last day you were possibly exposed to COVID-19,” the CDC recommends.

The same day Schnabel was told she was a positive contact she walked to AP&T to talk to one of its employees and told them that she was supposed to be quarantining.

“I had my head in the door,” Schnabel said of her trip to AP&T. “I said, ‘I’m on quarantine so I’m not coming in.’ Then I came into my office and I closed the door and I worked.”

She said she stayed home all weekend, but on Monday traveled to Bigfoot, she said.

“On Monday I had a lapse. I was on a bike ride and forgot I was in quarantine,” Schnabel said. “I stopped by Bigfoot.”

This week, the woman who tested positive last week was tested twice and both results were negative for COVID-19.

“I have to admit I was a little bit loose when I found out (the woman) tested negative,” Schnabel said of her attitude the rest of the week.

On Wednesday, Schnabel walked from her home to her car at Bigfoot and drove to the SEARHC clinic to take a test. She said she has stayed at home since.

The issue has raised questions about what is enforceable and what is recommended. While positive cases of COVID-19 are required to stay home, contacts are not. Similar to wearing face masks and coverings in public, it is a recommendation and not a mandate.

The issue also raises questions regarding testing, which is a blunt tool, said Haines Health Center director Lylith Widmer. She said false-positive tests are highly unlikely. She cautions using tests as a reason for getting out of 14-day quarantine requirements in similar situations.

“With regards to testing, an individual will only be positive if they are experiencing viral shedding at the time the test is taken,” Widmer said. “Thus, a negative test result should not be conceptualized as a ‘get out of jail free’ card, as it essentially only means that the individual was not shedding virus at the time the test was taken.”

Viruses can shed, transmit, for up to 14 days after exposure or 10 days after the onset of symptoms.

“This is the reason that quarantine is the gold standard over any testing algorithms,” Widmer said. “While we do want to focus our community efforts on increasing testing as a means to identify and isolate the virus, we need to be putting just as much emphasis, if not more, on sharpening and utilizing the remainder of the tools in our toolbox, as they are probably more effective in preventing the spread within our community.”

Other tools, Widmer said, include wearing masks or cloth face coverings, hand washing, physical distancing, keeping social circle’s small and quarantining if exposed to the virus.