Island Senior is a reg­u­lar col­umn on the San Juan Update writ­ten by Peg­gy Sue McRae… If you are any­thing like me being snowed in dur­ing a pan­dem­ic over the hol­i­days involved plen­ty of Christ­mas movies, whole sea­son binges, plus more than the usu­al baked goods, sweets, and fes­tive bev­er­ages. Also, if you are like me,  Con­tin­ue Reading

NOTE: the sit­u­a­tion is chang­ing quick­ly and cas­es are increas­ing. This will be a long update, but please read the entire doc­u­ment. There are a num­ber of crit­i­cal details that it is impor­tant the com­mu­ni­ty be aware of. Thank you! Since the last update on Fri­day Decem­ber 24th, there have been 54 new con­firmed or prob­a­ble  Con­tin­ue Reading

Here’s a let­ter to you from SJI Fire & Res­cue… San Juan Island Fire and Res­cue (SJIF&R) remains com­mit­ted to con­tin­u­ous improve­ment in our ser­vice to our islands’ com­mu­ni­ties to ensure pro­fes­sion­al, qual­i­ty, and com­pas­sion­ate emer­gency response and ser­vice. Why does SJIF&R respond to med­ical calls? First: SJIF&R’s guid­ing prin­ci­ple is do what is right for  Con­tin­ue Reading

In the Mail­bag today we have this let­ter from Nathan But­ler, Super­in­ten­dent and EMS Admin­is­tra­tor… We have seen the recent let­ter from Fire Chief Norvin Collins regard­ing our agency and merg­er talks. He bad­ly mis­rep­re­sent­ed our agency, and his let­ter is an object les­son in why we have opt­ed not to try again at merg­ing  Con­tin­ue Reading

Since the last update on Fri­day Decem­ber 17th, there have been 13 new con­firmed or prob­a­ble cas­es in San Juan Coun­ty. Cur­rent case count is now 479. How­ev­er, there are a num­ber of sus­pect cas­es cur­rent­ly under inves­ti­ga­tion that are not yet count­ed in the total case count pend­ing con­firm­ing test results, but may con­tribute  Con­tin­ue Reading

San Juan Coun­ty Health & Com­mu­ni­ty Ser­vices and com­mu­ni­ty part­ners dis­trib­uted sev­er­al thou­sand Ever­ly­Well COVID-19 Home test kits over the last week. Some of these test kits had an expi­ra­tion date of Decem­ber 21, 2021.  We were informed that the expi­ra­tion dates for these test kits have been extend­ed for one year beyond the print­ed  Con­tin­ue Reading

The Med­ical Teams Inter­na­tion­al Mobile Den­tal Van is return­ing in 2022 thanks to a pub­­lic-pri­­vate part­ner­ship mak­ing den­tal access to care avail­able across the islands.  2022 Den­tal Clin­ic Dates: Fri­day Har­bor — Jan­u­ary 19–22, March 7–10, Octo­ber 5–8, and Decem­ber 7–10 Lopez — March 11–12, Sep­tem­ber 23–24 Orcas — Feb­ru­ary 15–18, April 13–16, Sep­tem­ber 19–22, and Novem­ber  Con­tin­ue Reading

A record 77 peo­ple received free care dur­ing the first mobile pre­ven­ta­tive care clin­ic coor­di­nat­ed by San Juan County’s new Lat­inx Health­care Advi­so­ry Com­mit­tee.  The clin­ic, host­ed Decem­ber 2 at the Mullis Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­ter by the Joyce L. Sobel Fam­i­ly Resource Cen­ter (FRC), Sea Mar Com­mu­ni­ty Health Cen­ter and Peace­Health, was cre­at­ed in response to  Con­tin­ue Reading

Dr. Frank James wrote this let­ter to share with you… Just to be clear. This is the qui­et before the storm. Be wise and pru­dent and don’t go out to eat, don’t trav­el for the hol­i­days, love the ones you are with now and have been with all along. Jan­u­ary will be the hard­est time in  Con­tin­ue Reading

Since the last update on Fri­day Decem­ber 10th, there have been 16 new con­firmed or prob­a­ble cas­es in San Juan Coun­ty. Cur­rent case count is now 466. While the trans­mis­sion source is not known for all these cas­es, a num­ber are tied to recent hol­i­day trav­el or recent family/friend gath­er­ings. There are approx­i­mate­ly sev­en unvac­ci­nat­ed  Con­tin­ue Reading

“Island Senior” is a reg­u­lar col­umn on the San Juan Update writ­ten by Peg­gy Sue McRae… Here come the hol­i­days! It’s a time to con­nect with the peo­ple that we love. It’s whirl of sparkling activ­i­ties and time-hon­ored tra­di­tions that can bring with it the stress of keep­ing up with our social cal­en­dars. Plus Covid. This  Con­tin­ue Reading

Just got a call from Bruce Mar­tin with the Lions club. They’re hav­ing a guest speak­er at their meet­ing today at noon — Dr. House from Even­tide Health will be talk­ing about the future of health­care on the island and you’re invit­ed to attend via zoom. Here’s the info you will need to join:

Since the last update on Fri­day Decem­ber 3rd, there have been 13 new con­firmed or prob­a­ble cas­es in San Juan Coun­ty. Cur­rent case count is now 450. There are approx­i­mate­ly two unvac­ci­nat­ed close con­tacts of pos­i­tive cas­es cur­rent­ly in quar­an­tine in the islands. Lopez Island: There is one new case on Lopez Island since the last  Con­tin­ue Reading

COVID-19 updates from San Juan Coun­ty around sub­jects on the minds of islanders  The New Omi­cron Vari­ant and What it May Mean for the Islands The rise of a wor­ri­some new vari­ant is front and cen­ter in head­lines for good rea­son, but as is so often the case, find­ing the bal­ance between irra­tional fear and  Con­tin­ue Reading

Can you believe it? Win­ter break is almost upon us. Wasn’t it just yes­ter­day that we opened our school doors to full day, in-per­­son instruc­tion? Even though this fall has flown by, last week’s Thanks­giv­ing cel­e­bra­tion remind­ed me we have much to be grate­ful for in our pub­lic schools. Hope­ful­ly you have noticed the rebuild­ing  Con­tin­ue Reading

Since the last update on Fri­day Novem­ber 26th, there have been 6 new con­firmed or prob­a­ble cas­es in San Juan Coun­ty. Cur­rent case count is now 437. There are approx­i­mate­ly four unvac­ci­nat­ed close con­tacts of pos­i­tive cas­es cur­rent­ly in quar­an­tine in the islands. Lopez Island: There are no new cas­es on Lopez Island since the last  Con­tin­ue Reading