Juneau’s institutions look back on a year of COVID

Monday will mark a full year since Juneau’s first confirmed case of the coronavirus.

In that time, Juneau residents have gone from hoarding toilet paper and comparing the coronavirus to the flu to understanding more about a disease that swept the planet, killing more Americans so far than World War II.

“It’s hard to believe that it’s been a year. It’s flown by at the same time it’s crawled by.” said Deputy City Manager and head of City and Borough of Juneau Emergency Operations Center Mila Cosgrove, in a phone interview. “I got back to town on the 15th, and we stood up the EOC on the 16th. Schools were closed. We closed our rec facilities. And we went into what we thought would be a relatively short period of hunkering down.”

At the same time the schools were closed, Canada closed its ports, initially until July 1, later extending this closure to cruise traffic. Lack of information didn’t help the formation of an effective response, Cosgrove said.

“At that point, what we were telling people was, cover your mouth, wash your hands, don’t touch your face. We weren’t telling people to wear masks. Testing was very constrained,” Cosgrove said. “Today, we know how effective masks are. They’re one of the best tools in our tool kits.”

Juneau was planning a celebration at the time for the 50th anniversary of its incorporation as the City and Borough of Juneau, said Mayor Beth Weldon, who contracted the coronavirus in late May while traveling. The Assembly made rapid moves, Weldon said, but no one yet knew how long the pandemic would last.

Cosgrove credited officials and the community with quickly adopting reasonable mitigation measures.

“We started testing airport travelers in March when the state started in June,” Cosgrove said. “Some people didn’t like it, and I’m sure lots of people wished it was different. But the community has done an amazing job of being proactive in their actions.”

Last year, saw more than 50 regular and special assembly meetings, Weldon said. Usually, there are about 20 in a year.

Weldon said some changes made at the height of the pandemic are expected to remain —even as government functions near normal.

“I think we will continue to take call-in testimony,” Weldon said. “And I think we’ll continue to have vote-by-mail. We had such a good turnout.”

Cosgrove said a “safety net” officials have attempted to build for the city’s population experiencing homelessness is another success.

“It hasn’t been a completely smooth journey, and it has been a complex one,” she said. “But when we saw an outbreak in that population, we handled it well and it passed quickly.”

This year’s local elections had about 11,000 voters, Weldon said, as opposed to the average of approximately 5,000 voters.

Juneau, which had reported 1,326 cases as of Friday, was a pathfinder in some respects, Weldon said.

“We were probably the first in the nation to reach out to businesses. We were quick to reach out to help with child care,” Weldon said. “We acted pretty quickly. We were meeting all the time, but we acted pretty quickly.”

Weldon said she’s satisfied with how Juneau handled the storm.

“I think we did a pretty good job with the pandemic. From the start, we said ‘we’re going to trust the science.’ We put public health in front. Yes, our economy suffered, but we tried to help that,” Weldon said. “I think we did a fairly good job.”

Now, as Juneau’s rate of new cases is staying low and vaccination rates are climbing, the best thing Juneau residents is get vaccinated to help with the overall public health situation in the city, Cosgrove said.

“If you’re on the fence about getting a vaccine, talk to people,” Cosgrove said. “Do your research. It’s really important that we get vaccinated. If you don’t think you need to do it for yourself, think of it as an act of community service. It’s one of the ways we’re going to keep our economy strong through a potentially dismal summer.”

Hospitals and public health

Few places were as big a focus in the initial coronavirus response as Bartlett Regional Hospital.

“It’s dominated my life for the last year,” said infectious disease prevention specialist Charlee Gribbon in a phone interview. “The modeling forecast for Juneau was that we’d have 5,000 people infected and 20-30 people dead. That period of March to April before we went all in with universal masking was scary.”

As of Friday, there were five reported deaths for City and Borough of Juneau.

The hospital acted rapidly at news of the spreading pandemic, signaling readiness to face the disease as early as February. At the time, the flu was considered a bigger priority, before the scale of the coronavirus became known.

“We, already by March, had been saying that I was more worried about the flu. It was already a weird flu year,” Gribbon said. “I couldn’t imagine how we could stop the flu. Now, I haven’t seen the flu since last March since we all put masks on.”

As cases grew, Gribbon said, Juneau pulled together to hold the line against the virus.

“Having everyone do that universal masking, I saw the collective engagement,” Gribbon said. “Juneau, we’re an island community. We only have nine ICU beds. People really understood, ‘Hey, there’s people dying by the hundreds in China, and I only have 9 ventilators.’”

Many people came to appreciate the “public” in public health during the pandemic, Gribbon said.

“I think that we all were able to recognize this is a societal disease. If we want to live in a society in a neighborhood with all the benefits of sidewalks and schools, we have to think of others. It’s not about you, it’s about the people around you,” Gribbon said.

Continued mask-wearing and mitigation strategies could definitely cut down on the spread of influenza in the future. Fewer than 100 cases were reported by the Department of Health and Social Services.

“It’s been a difficult learning experience for lots of people. But I don’t want to take away what we’ve learned,” Gribbon said. “If we can do that and cut the transmission of viruses in the fall, we’ll make our teachers and our parents and our students so much happier through the year. That’s something I don’t want to lose.”

While vaccines are certainly a positive change, the fight isn’t over yet, Gribbon said.

“When you don’t see people suffering in front of you, it’s not real,” Gribbon said. “I’m not ringing any bells and say we’ve conquered this because we’ve still got a long way to go. I want to be at 80% (vaccinated) before I see a substantial change in mask policy.”

Juneau School District

Juneau’s schools shut down on Friday, March 13, 2020 — first for a day, then for three days, then for two weeks, and then for a semester as cases grew and state and local governments responded to the mounting crisis.

“There was absolutely no way to envision what this experience would be for us,” said Juneau School District Superintendent Bridget Weiss. “It hit us fast and furious last March along, with everybody else.”

The initial shutdown was after exhaustive consultation with her internal team, the city, and health officials, and wasn’t made without some misgivings, Weiss said. But early contingency planning paid off, Weiss said, and when the governor extended the closure, the district activated multiple contingency plans.

“When the governor pulled that trigger, we were so prepared, we had meals for kids on Monday,” Weiss said. “We responded very quickly thereafter with laptops, iPads, Chromebooks. We were set up pretty well because we had done some of that late February planning.”

While the spring semester continued on as a product of rapidly activated contingency plans, Weiss said, the summer gave district leadership a chance for long-term planning.

“All summer, our teachers worked really hard,” Weiss said. “We brought teachers together to choose some curricular support and design instruction that we had never done before. We definitely did better in the fall as we lifted off than the spring. It wasn’t perfect.”

The rollout was designed to be smooth and across the board, Weiss said, taking small, incremental steps to minimize the disruption to learning and lives that would be caused by start-and-stop shifts in the learning environment. It went as planned, Weiss said, with no mass infections so far that would require them to pull students out of in-person learning. The district has used pandemic response as a chance to improve things like parent engagement and trauma-informed practices, Weiss said.

“We’ve done as good as we could considering a pandemic. I felt like we were as prepared as we could be in the fall after really turning our system upside down from what we normally do,” Weiss said. “We certainly have silver linings that we’re going to take with us as we move forward.”

Now, Weiss is looking forward to getting as many students vaccinated before the autumn as possible. A widely vaccinated student body represents the best chance for a “normal” 2021-22 school year. Currently, only students 16 and older are eligible to be vaccinated. Federal officials have said it’s hoped some younger students will be eligible before fall.

“I’m so proud of Juneau and the way we’ve come together. It shows. It’s so encouraging to be moving forward,” Weiss said. “As an organization, we’ll be better because of this experience. I’m excited to have opportunities to be the best we can be.”

Emergency services and prison

Capital City Fire/Rescue shouldered a large part of the responsibility for testing in Juneau as soon as the responsibility existed.

“It was a huge learning experience for our department,” said CCFR Chief Rich Etheridge in a phone interview. “It was different from the other pandemics that didn’t take hold like this one. It was very different to have it take hold in town.”

The testing centers, once stood up in March, were able to employ people whose jobs had disappeared amid the pandemic. Still, Etheridge said, the coronavirus hit Juneau with surprising force, compared to disease like SARS. Logistics pipelines for protective equipment in Juneau proved to be initially insufficient for the level of daily activity CCFR was seeing.

“I’d been through a couple of the other scares, and I thought it’d be similar to those. We certainly saw a lot more of it here in Juneau,” Etheridge said. “One of the milestones was when we were able to stock enough protective equipment for the responders. One huge benefit was Sealaska donated some money for reusable, washable protective gear. That was a huge step. That will serve the department for years to come.”

JPD also had to rapidly assess what changes they needed to make at the beginning of the pandemic.

“I will say, March of last year, when we first went into this, it was big question marks. What do we need to do as the police department to continue to provide service?” said Chief Ed Mercer in an interview. “I think we fared really well as far as being able to continue to provide service. On an operational standpoint, I think we did well. Did we have a couple close scares? Yes. But did the protocols work? Yes.”

Readjusted PPE protocols for patrol officers, a shuttered lobby and moving of reporting for many petty crimes to an online format all built mitigation measures into JPD’s day to day, Mercer said.

Lemon Creek Correctional Center also made substantial operational changes, said Superintendent Bob Cordle.

“It was amazing how it impacted our daily operations,” Cordle said in a phone interview. “I never thought in a million years that a virus would have an impact like that on our facility.”

An outbreak cluster infected 11 correctional staff, but Cordle said the coronavirus never reached the prison’s general population, and he is grateful for that.

Several more members of the staff became infected independently over the year, but the April cluster was the only internal outbreak. Other prisons in the state did not avoid outbreaks among the incarcerated and had high rates of infection among inmates.

Inmates, with the loss of visitation rights for friends, family and, until recently, attorneys, have been hit the hardest, Cordle said. But they’ve weathered the storm, Cordle said.

“The department is really exploring reopening visitation to the facilities,” Cordle said. “But we’re going to take really small steps.”

The same early logistics shortages that affected other law enforcement agencies also hit Lemon Creek, though in ways one might not expect, Cordle said.

“We had some difficulties getting some orders in. We don’t keep a year’s supply of toilet paper,” Cordle said. “We never ran out, but it was like, ‘Oh my goodness.’ Our orders showed up and it gave us a little more cushion.”

Juneau’s shelters

Concerns in the early, confused stages of the pandemic abounded, especially for Juneau’s vulnerable and unsheltered population. Rapid action by the city working with organizations like the Glory Hall, the Juneau Society of St. Vincent de Paul and AWARE blunted the fangs of the disease, keeping that population largely safe and sheltered throughout.

“I had much more optimism that we’d weather it quicker than we did. But I’ve learned to expect the unexpected,” said Dave Ringle, general manager for St. Vincent’s. “Real early, CCFR responded to a COVID call at St. Vincent’s and they apologized for not knowing what to expect. We had a sick resident who thought she had COVID. They had one person come in in a HAZMAT suit, and I thought, ‘This is really serious.’”

The city, who contracts with St. Vincent’s to maintain a warming shelter, rapidly realized an alternative shelter was needed and seized on the Juneau Arts and Culture Center for extended use.

“It was a year ago on the 20th that we moved into the JACC. That was just the start. It was really early, Ringle said. “The warming shelter transitioned from the emergency shelter to the shelter with the largest capacity.”

The shelter is still being maintained there, now on the fourth contract amendment, Ringle said. The current extension will lapse on June 30, when the new Glory Hall building near the airport is expected to open. Other shelters have been weathering the storm in their own way.

“I heard someone on a meeting say ‘in these after times,’ and that is so dead-on. We’re just struggling to find a good balance,” said Mandy Cole, executive director of AWARE. “AWARE’s been operating fairly normally during these times. We kept our beds open and doors open.”

The experience for the vulnerable and unsheltered has been a harsh one, Cole and Ringle said, as people were isolated and prevented from leaving Juneau.

“The constant fear around testing, and waiting for results, and testing again, that was pretty draining,” Cole said. “The folks we serve couldn’t see their families. It’s been isolating.”

Ringle especially praised the work of shelter manager Jackie Bryant in keeping the shelter running smoothly and the population safe.

“COVID hit the homeless population for six weeks, it was intense, and then it was gone. Huge accolades need to go to Jackie Bryant, the shelter manager, who made the population understand the COVID,” said Ringle, then relaying a story about a shelter patron. “A man knocked on the back door (of the JACC), because he thought he had COVID. I saw the fear in this man’s eyes, and he wasn’t someone who usually showed fear. She made them understand this.”

Cole said she’s looking forward to being able to provide in-person services again.

“It’s really hard to ask for help. If you can’t be there and read the energy of the person who’s offering help, it’s really hard to ask for it,” Cole said. “People need people. For many people, it doesn’t work to ask for help over the phone. That’s been a big reinforcing thing, showing all this hard work is worth it. People get to reach out more safely.”

Governments

For some government entities, the pandemic has been confusing and concerning, while for others, it’s been a time of support and growth.

“I think we’re doing pretty good. It’s been a challenging year,” said Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska President Richard Chalyee Éesh Peterson in a phone interview. “One of my commitments was, how do we come out stronger on the other hand on this? We stood up our tribal emergency operations center. We hired some really amazing staff that have some emergency preparedness backgrounds.”

Southeast Alaska was also hit with other disasters during the last year, including a broken water system in Angoon and massive rain-triggered landslides in Haines. The Tlingit and Haida TEOC responded to that and more, shoring up emergency stockpiles in communities around the region.

“I’m really proud to say I’m from Juneau now. I’m proud to see how our health care responded,” Peterson said. “When the Haines disaster happened, I was proud to see how Juneau responded.”

Partnerships with organizations like the Coast Guard and Salvation Army helped to assist Tlingit and Haida in responding to crises. Peterson’s vision doesn’t stop there, however.

“We can assist our communities in putting together emergency plans. We can help them do an assessment of their needs,” Peterson said. “I think we’re going to do some big things and really build on the opportunity.”

Tlingit and Haida is developing its back to office plan, Peterson said. But they’re also thinking of new ways to work with employees.

“Two years ago, if you had said, ‘I want to work for the tribe, but I want to work from home,’ I’d’ve said you’re crazy,” Peterson said. “We’re trying to meet our citizens where they are. I think now we can look at employment in a different way. If you can be accessible, why not work from home? Why not work from one of our villages?”

For the Alaska State Legislature, it’s been a strange time, said state Sen. Jesse Kiehl. D-Juneau.

“Last March, there was massive uncertainty. Nobody knew what this was going to look like,” Kiehl said in a phone interview. “We were on the floor. We were not masked, and we were nervous. There were comments to the fear and uncertainty in our speeches.”

That uncertainty was endemic for everyone in the early days of the pandemic, Kiehl said.

“We didn’t have a great understanding of how this particular virus worked. I had colleagues saying, ‘You aren’t going to do anything foolish like closing bars and restaurants like they did in Anchorage?,’” Kiehl said. “We were talking to Dr. Zink about whether we had the capacity to do 200 tests. Our ability to understand the risk and reduce the risk is just light years ahead.”

Estimates varied wildly for people’s predictions of the longevity of the pandemic, Kiehl said. Some other expectations also proved faulty.

“I was a little too optimistic. I was hoping we’d be mostly vaccinated, a year later. That was based on a limited understanding. Some people thought a few weeks,” Kiehl said. “I did not expect Canada to have closed borders and waters for the second year. I would have looked askance at anyone who said that they would.”

Last year’s legislative season was truncated by the then-growing pandemic. The Legislature reconvened briefly and “contentiously” to handle the governor’s CARES Act proposal before returning home until now, Kiehl said.

“We talked about a special session probably every month from July to the end of October and never did get one together,” Kiehl said. “We are still deeply divided about whether we did enough as a Legislature or gave too much power to the executive.”

Businesses and the economy

For Juneau’s tourism-oriented and service economy, the pandemic was a boot to the teeth.

“We knew this is exactly what would happen. We certainly were anticipating a rough summer,” said Brian Holst, director of the Juneau Economic Development Council. “For several weeks, we thought by the end of summer, we’d be cruising again.”

Juneau’s bars and restaurants closed down at 5 p.m. on March 18, shutting down for a month while the city figured out how to safely reopen. Bars, gyms and restaurants eventually reopened, albeit in a safer fashion, with customer limits and mitigation measures in place.

“I knew it wasn’t going to just be two weeks,” said Leeann Thomas, owner of the Triangle Club. “I feel like last year is in the rear view. I appreciate everyone who came in and helped us. Every customer who came in counted.”

For others, there wasn’t even the reprieve of hobbled running. The millions of potential tourists who come to Juneau disappeared in an instant when Canada closed its ports to big-deck cruise ships, and the Passenger Vessel Services Act prevented all but one abortive small-deck sailing from happening in 2020.

“Some service industry businesses have rebounded, but most tourism businesses lost an entire season of revenue,” Holst said in an email. “This was evidenced by the types of businesses who received support through the Business Sustainability Grant program.”

The city distributed more than $16 million in assistance to businesses, Holst said, which helped many scrape by. For families, the hardest hit were in the lowest income sectors, where layoffs and jobs disappearing were more common. The more well-off people generally made it through with their jobs intact, Holst said.

“The city’s use of the $57 million they received was instrumental in supporting businesses and families. I don’t see a high failure rate of businesses. I see a lot of businesses suffering,” Holst said. “We’re concerned about business programs for the summer.”

Unemployment in Juneau has improved considerably from a June 2020 peak of 11.7% to 5.4% in January, but this summer is still going to be very lean, as businesses try to capture traffic from independent and small-deck cruise tourism.

“The biggest block is the inability under federal law for these big cruise ships to get here through Canada,” Holst said. “It’s the smaller US flagged vessels that will come. While each passenger spends more, the volume is so much less.”

For Thomas, with luck, the upcoming months will be lean but not starving.

“I have some positive hopes for the summer. We’ll still have our belt tightened but we’re looking to the future. It’s going to get better,” Thomas said. “We’re still here. We hope our neighbor businesses can make it. With some working together, we’re in a better place than most places.”

• Contact reporter Michael S. Lockett at (757) 621-1197 or mlockett@juneauempire.com.