COVID-19

Students in Fairbanks will be allowed to return to classroom buildings in January.
By a narrow 4-3 vote, the Fairbanks North Star Borough school board last night passed a motion to return students to school buildings after a two-week prep and quarantine period.

Health-care providers at all three clinics in the Delta Junction area are mostly back on the job today, after several were quarantined last month for testing positive for coronavirus – and a few were recovering from full-blown cases of COVID-19.

As Public Health trackers try to keep up with the surge in coronavirus cases, more paid staff members and volunteers are needed.

The School Board in Fairbanks will be working on plans to fully return children to school next month at a worksession tonight (Tuesday). No votes will be taken, and the board may choose not to implement plans that do not conform to CDC guidelines or the state’s “Smart Start” pandemic protocols issued in August.

The very first COVID-19 vaccine doses may arrive in Alaska before the month is out. But there will be very little of it, and logistics to distribute it are not easy. The state’s COVID-19 Vaccine Taskforce has been working on the rollout since October, and Thursday shared the plan with hospitals, doctors and pharmacists across the state.

With three weeks left until Winter Break, schools in Fairbanks are looking to next semester. At its meeting Tuesday, the school board for Fairbanks North Star Borough School District heard plans for getting more kids physically into classrooms, even while the area is in the COVID “Red” zone. But the board could not agree, and will take up the discussion again next Tuesday night.

Tok-based Alaska Gateway School District has been teaching students both in the classroom and online this school year, in an effort reduce the spread of coronavirus and maintain the quality of education. The district superintendent says it’s so far, the hybrid form of instruction has worked pretty well.

Fort Greely has elevated its COVID-19 alert level and is taking precautions like closing the post child-care center in response to the rising numbers of area residents who’ve tested positive for coronavirus, including one who worked at the child-care center.

Four days after Delta Junction's mayor ordered the local hockey rink closed to reduce the risk of coronavirus transmission, the City Council voted in Tuesday’s meeting to re-open it, in response to an outcry from the local hockey association.