The Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly will vote on an emergency ordinance appropriating $400,000 for a molecular testing platform at their meeting Tuesday. The proposed purchase is aimed at bolstering COVID-19 testing capability.<\/p>\n
COVID-19 testing for borough residents is “neither rapid, reliable nor ubiquitous as necessary to protect our communities,” borough administrators John Hedges, Dan Nelson, Brenda Ahlberg and Brandi Harbaugh said in a May 21 memo to the assembly.<\/p>\n
Less than 3% of the borough’s population has been tested for COVID-19 — due to lack of a centrally located high-capacity testing, according to the memo.<\/p>\n
According to the memo, Mayor Charlie Pierce and both hospitals have decided that purchasing a centralized high-capacity rapid test system would be needed to “protect borough residents and businesses … as the pandemic continues to plague and disrupt our communities.”<\/p>\n
The platform — the Cobas 6800 system — would be purchased for no more than $400,000 from Roche Diagnostics Corporation. The platform is in large demand, the memo said, and many of the units are already back-ordered. The memo said annual maintenance costs for the system are $45,000 with an initial expected delivery lead time of four to six months.<\/p>\n
“In discussion with CPH the Cobas 6800 is the only unit on the market that meets this size and capacity for the testing needs of COVID-19,” the memo said.<\/p>\n
The memo said borough administration will pursue “additional grant opportunities” through the federal COVID-19 relief package for reimbursement. The Kenai Peninsula Borough has been awarded $37,458,449 from the CARES Act, with a first installment of $21,325,715.<\/p>\n
The emergency ordinance will be heard at 6 p.m. during Tuesday’s assembly meeting, which will be open to the public virtually via Zoom, using meeting ID 128 871 931.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The platform would be purchased for no more than $400,000, with expected delivery in four to six months. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1088,"featured_media":48062,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,811],"tags":[534,61],"class_list":["post-48061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-top-news","tag-coronavirus","tag-kenai-peninsula-borough"],"yoast_head":"\n