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How Bethel City Administration And Emergency Responders Are Preparing For COVID-19

City of Bethel

Beginning weeks ago, before any confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 in Alaska, the City of Bethel’s staff and emergency responders began preparing for the scenario of the novel coronavirus reaching Bethel.

Bethel Acting Police Chief Amy Davis says that part of that preparation is 911 dispatchers being trained on how to identify cases of the virus. Emergency responders have also been stocking up on protective gear, but Acting Fire Chief Daron Solesbee says that doing so has been an issue.

“The supply chain’s basically dried up,” Solesbee said.

Solesbee said that the shortage of protective gear is an issue nationwide. He said that Bethel’s emergency responders have enough masks for a short-term response to the coronavirus, but not if it’s long-term or wide-scale. Solesbee said that the city could get more masks from the state, and that the state could offer an even more valuable resource: extra emergency responders. 

“They would be willing to provide personnel should our department responders become incapacitated due to this virus,” Solesbee said.

To prevent that scenario, EMS, police, and fire department workers have been training to respond to someone possibly carrying COVID-19. Acting City Manager Bill Howell explained how that involved “retraining folks on how to properly apply respiratory protection, also conducting respiratory fit tests to make sure that everybody has a good seal on their face mask so that it fits properly, talking about medical equipment that’s needed for the proper treatment, diagnosis of patients with that condition."

The city has also adopted a new policy, informed by best practices from the CDC, for emergency medical personnel responding to patients who might be carrying the virus. Howell described the policy as “a memo within our medical personnel describing what our protocols or procedures are in dealing with patients, and a decision tree on how to diagnosis it and the questions to ask."

The city is requiring all city directors to watch CDC webinars on how to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the workplace, and is making this information available for all city employees. The city is meeting with the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation and Public Health Nursing to coordinate their roles and responsibilities amid a virus outbreak.

That coordination will eventually need to be handed off to a new city manager. Bethel’s new city manager, Vincenzo “Vinny” Corazza, arrives in Bethel April 6. His start date won’t change, but if Bethel is in the midst of a coronavirus crisis, Howell says that Corazza won’t have to manage the city alone.
“I will stay and serve the city as much and as long as they need me, especially in the midst of an emergency,” Howell said.

Anna Rose MacArthur served as KYUK's News Director from 2015-2022.
Greg Kim was a news reporter for KYUK from 2019-2022.