From San Juan Island Fire & Res­cue… On Thurs­day after­noon, August 13, 2020, emer­gency respon­ders from San Juan Island Fire and Res­cue, San Juan Island EMS, and Air­lift NW respond­ed to a 911 emer­gency call report­ing an uncon­scious per­son who was not breath­ing at the Roche Har­bor Mari­na. Sev­er­al bystanders at the scene imme­di­ate­ly went  Con­tin­ue Reading

Update from from the Coun­ty… There has been one new con­firmed pos­i­tive test result in San Juan Coun­ty since the last case sum­ma­ry on August 3rd. The case inves­ti­ga­tion was com­plet­ed today (Thurs­day, August 13th). This is the 31st case in San Juan Coun­ty and the 12th on Orcas Island. The case occurred in an Orcas Island  Con­tin­ue Reading

COVID-19 updates from San Juan Coun­ty around sub­jects on the minds of islanders As we head into the sec­ond half of August, local pub­lic and pri­vate schools are pur­su­ing a range of options for the start of the school year. This arti­cle will not be address­ing the specifics of school reopen­ing plans-that will come direct­ly  Con­tin­ue Reading

COVID-19 updates from San Juan Coun­ty around sub­jects on the minds of islanders This Hot Top­ic will pro­vide a broad overview of con­firmed pos­i­tive cas­es to date in San Juan Coun­ty. This infor­ma­tion is very gen­er­al in nature to ensure pri­va­cy, but hope­ful­ly is a use­ful way to con­vey the nature of cas­es in San  Con­tin­ue Reading

We are pleased to announce that Jesse Nye, DO, has joined Peace­Health Med­ical Group Fri­day Har­bor in the Fam­i­ly Med­i­cine clin­ic. He is an expe­ri­enced physi­cian who will pro­vide com­pre­hen­sive acute, chron­ic and pre­ven­tive med­ical care ser­vices for his patients. Nye grew up in Wash­ing­ton state and grad­u­at­ed from Cen­tral Wash­ing­ton Uni­ver­si­ty (CWU) in Ellens­burg  Con­tin­ue Reading

At last evening’s spe­cial board meet­ing, the San Juan Island School Dis­trict Board of Direc­tors approved a fall reopen­ing plan for schools.  After sev­er­al months of plan­ning with the dis­trict work­groups and steer­ing com­mit­tee, Super­in­ten­dent Fred Woods rec­om­mend­ed to the Board that the San Juan Island pub­lic schools begin the 2020–2021 school year under a  Con­tin­ue Reading

COVID-19 updates from San Juan Coun­ty around sub­jects on the minds of islanders To be clear: Face shields have absolute­ly no abil­i­ty to min­i­mize the spread of droplets from some­one infect­ed with COVID. There is sim­ply too much air flow around the shield for them to be effec­tive. They are not an accept­able alter­na­tive to cloth  Con­tin­ue Reading

Gov­er­nor Inslee announces edu­ca­tion rec­om­men­da­tions for 2020–2021 school year… San Juan Coun­ty is among 5 coun­ties in Wash­ing­ton State that are con­sid­ered “Low Risk” for COVID-19. Plans regard­ing school reopen­ing are made by the local health juris­dic­tion and school dis­trict. Gov. Jay Inslee, Super­in­ten­dent of Pub­lic Instruc­tion Chris Reyk­dal and DOH’s state health offi­cer, Dr.  Con­tin­ue Reading

From San Juan Coun­ty Depart­ment of Emer­gency Man­age­ment… San Juan Coun­ty is shift­ing to a week­ly roll-up of new cas­es. This is the first of those reports. Going for­ward, the report will be issued on Thurs­day of each week. In addi­tion to pro­vid­ing for addi­tion­al time to review results of case inves­ti­ga­tions and draft releas­es,  Con­tin­ue Reading

The San Juan Update is pleased to reprint this inter­view by Minor Lile with San Juan Coun­ty Pub­lic Health Offi­cer Dr. Frank James as pub­lished 7.30.2020 in Orcas Issues News & Views… As Pub­lic Health Offi­cer for San Juan Coun­ty, Dr. Frank James has played a promi­nent role in the com­mu­ni­ty response to the Coro­n­avirus  Con­tin­ue Reading

Since March, OPALCO has helped more than 450 mem­bers to pay their bills. Oth­er mem­bers have giv­en gen­er­ous­ly to the mem­ber assis­tance pro­grams: donat­ing solar pro­duc­tion cred­its or direct­ly to the low-income pro­grams. Many oth­er mem­bers have ben­e­fit­ed by not accru­ing fees or being dis­con­nect­ed for non-pay­­ment dur­ing these dif­fi­cult times. OPALCO is close­ly mon­i­tor­ing mem­ber  Con­tin­ue Reading

San Juan Coun­ty Pub­lic Hos­pi­tal Dis­trict No. 1 is pro­vid­ing notice of a Spe­cial Meet­ing to be held joint­ly with San Juan Island Fire and Res­cue on Tues­day July 28, 2020 at 4:00 p.m. This meet­ing will be online due to COVID-19: mem­bers of the pub­lic may call 509–824‑1884 and enter 919 848 360# This meet­ing  Con­tin­ue Reading

As pos­i­tive test results con­tin­ue to occur in San Juan Coun­ty, the Coun­ty COVID-19 Response Team is going to adjust the report­ing strat­e­gy and sched­ule. Going for­ward:   — The Case Count Page will be updat­ed when pos­i­tive test results are received and ini­tial inves­ti­ga­tion has con­firmed the result.  — A week­ly sum­ma­ry of pos­i­tive  Con­tin­ue Reading

On July 23, Gov­er­nor Inslee issued new require­ments for all of Wash­ing­ton State in response to increas­ing infec­tions. In addi­tion, Wash­ing­ton Sec­re­tary of Health Wies­man added addi­tion­al require­ments to the exist­ing face cov­er­ing order. Below is some pre­lim­i­nary infor­ma­tion on what the new require­ments mean for San Juan Coun­ty. This sum­ma­ry is based on ini­tial infor­ma­tion  Con­tin­ue Reading

One new pos­i­tive COVID-19 case has been report­ed on San Juan Island, which brings the total num­ber of cas­es in San Juan Coun­ty to date to 26. The ini­tial case inves­ti­ga­tion is com­plete. A small num­ber of close con­tacts have been iden­ti­fied and are in quar­an­tine and the patient is iso­lat­ing. The find­ings from the  Con­tin­ue Reading

One new pos­i­tive COVID-19 case has been report­ed on Orcas Island, which brings the total num­ber of cas­es in San Juan Coun­ty to date to 25. The ini­tial case inves­ti­ga­tion is com­plete. Close con­tacts are in quar­an­tine and the patient is iso­lat­ing. The find­ings from the case inves­ti­ga­tion sug­gest the trans­mis­sion source was a large  Con­tin­ue Reading