Sitka’s active COVID case count made a dramatic jump today (7-7-21), when local health officials reported 10 new cases, pushing the active case count in the community to 26. Two of the cases have been hospitalized.

Seven of the new patients are Sitka residents and three are non-residents. More than half of the patients are 19 or younger. Several children under 10 tested positive along with several teens (between ages 10 and 19), a woman in her 30s, two men in their 40s, and a man in his 50s.

All 10 patients were experiencing symptoms when they received testing this week, according to information on the city’s COVID dashboard. Four of the new cases are “secondary,” meaning the patients had known contact with a person who tested positive for the coronavirus. One case is travel-related, and contact tracing is still in progress for the rest of the patients.

In an interview with the Sitka Sentinel today, Fire Chief Craig Warren said that 19 of the last 20 reported coronavirus cases were unvaccinated. The vaccinated patient who tested positive was asymptomatic.

Sitka remains on “high” alert with 26 active coronavirus cases, the biggest spike in COVID cases since January.