Bronson administration asks for more funds to restore COVID-19 testing to prior levels in Anchorage

Kristina Sullivan, left, and Samantha Maxim conduct COVID-19 checks at a testing website on the Loussac Library on Friday, Aug. 6, 2021 in Anchorage. (Loren Holmes / ADN)

After funds for COVID-19 testing in Anchorage started to run brief, prompting a reduction in hours and a shift in guidance at various sites, the mayor’s administration requested more cash Tuesday to carry ranges again as much as regular.

A spokesman for Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson mentioned in an e-mail Tuesday {that a} $2.65 million request could be submitted to the Anchorage Meeting as an emergency ordinance.

The funding would fill a spot that resulted from a dramatic rise in COVID-19 testing since midsummer, Anchorage Well being Division director Joe Gerace mentioned lately. Anchorage’s each day case counts reached new pandemic highs within the present surge, and extra circumstances have been recognized as extra folks have sought testing with widespread virus transmission occurring.

Gerace mentioned funding for virus testing wouldn’t final by the tip of October if testing ranges remained exceptionally excessive, which is why the town now emphasizes that its contracted websites run by Go to Healthcare are meant to be used “solely folks with COVID-19 signs or shut contacts of a COVID-19 case.” Different testing places stay obtainable to the general public, and a metropolis well being division spokesperson mentioned that individuals looking for testing who don’t meet these standards gained’t be turned away.

Testing websites over the weekend and Monday in Anchorage noticed lengthy traces, together with on the fashionable Loussac Library drive-thru website, which had greater than a dozen automobiles in line an hour earlier than it opened Monday.

Beginning final Friday, the town reduce 108 hours per week from the testing schedule at its websites, which embody the Loussac Library, Changepoint Church and the Muldoon Neighborhood Meeting. That step was additionally vital to assist maintain testing by the remainder of the month, Gerace mentioned.

The extra funding request ought to restore testing to earlier ranges by the tip of November, in line with Bronson spokesman Corey Allen Younger. It has help from the Meeting, he mentioned.

Anchorage Meeting members voted to take up the funding request at their assembly Tuesday night time however had not but thought-about it as of 8 p.m.

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