Haines, Alaska gets second case of COVID-19

Haines, Alaska has another positive case of COVID-19. The Haines Emergency Operations Centre has confirmed a female asymptomatic patient was tested Wednesday. The woman is in her 30s and in isolation.

The first local person who had the disease has now recovered.

The Department of Public Health has started contact tracing and asking the patient's close contacts to isolate for 14 days.

"We'reconcerned but we'renot in a panic mode in my opinion," Janice Hill, mayor of Haines, said Friday.

"We have a good emergency command group that deals with this and I think that we reached out to our community with three town hall meetings."

Hill says the Borough of Haines is encouraging locals to wear face masks and physicallydistance.

Nearby community concerned for elder health

Klukwan is a villagearound 30 kilometres outside of Haines. David Strong, a resident in Klukwan, said other illnesses like influenza and tuberculosis have taken a lot of community members in the past.

"We're concerned about this pandemic because we worry if it has the same effects as last time ...it could be really bad," he said.

Strong said most of the people living in the community are older folks. The community is taking precautions like blocking roads.

Strong said he did wish there was more information available about how the transmission happened.

"None of us know anything about where the second person has come from yet or did it get spread from the first [person] or what happened? It's just not very much information in that regard quite yet. So we're definitely concerned," he said.