In-person attorney visits to resume in Alaska prison system
March 17, 2021
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ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) The Alaska Department of Corrections is allowing attorney-client visits to resume within its facilities after a yearlong suspension related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The department said visits can resume starting Wednesday, with limits. For example, the person who is imprisoned must be fully vaccinated and attorneys will be subject to screening, including temperature checks, the department said.
Face coverings and appointments will be required. Transparent dividers will be placed in visitation rooms with “enhanced cleaning” after each use, the department said.
For the past year, those in department custody have had to rely on phone calls from lawyers to discuss their cases, Alaska Public Media reported.
Dallas Seavey on the cusp of 5th title with Iditarod lead
MARK THIESSEN, Associated Press
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1of8Ryan Redington, right, with his team in harness, stops near a team bedded down near the trail as the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race headed toward the Rohn checkpoint Saturday, March 13, 2021. (Zachariah Hughes/Anchorage Daily News via AP, Pool)Zachariah Hughes/APShow MoreShow Less
2of8One of the frontrunning teams heads toward the Rohn checkpoint during the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race on Saturday, March 13, 2021, in Alaska. (Zachariah Hughes/Anchorage Daily News via AP, Pool)Zachariah Hughes/APShow MoreShow Less
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4of8Mushers handle their dog care on a cold morning in the McGrath, Alaska, checkpoint during the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race on Saturday, March 13, 2021. (Zachariah Hughes/Anchorage Daily News via AP, Pool)Zachariah Hughes/APShow MoreShow Less
Iditarod officials contact tracing after positive virus test
BECKY BOHRER, Associated Press
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JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) A musher taken out of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race after testing positive for COVID-19 at a checkpoint is believed to have been exposed by a person who had been in his quarantine bubble before the race started, a doctor working on the race said Thursday.
Dr. Jodie Guest, an epidemiologist working on the race, told reporters musher Gunnar Johnson and all other mushers tested negative on March 4 and all were also tested on Sunday, before the race start. On March 5, Johnson was in a vehicle with a person “who was part of two people in his bubble that he was quarantining with prior to the race, between his 14-day-before-the-race and his three-day-before-the-race test,” she said.
Alaska Black Caucus fights visitation ban at prisons
March 6, 2021
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ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) A visitation ban at all of Alaska s correctional facilities because of the coronavirus pandemic should be loosened, officials from the Alaska Black Caucus said.
Celeste Hodge Growden, president of the Alaska Black Caucus, said to reporters on Thursday that the organization had reached out to state officials multiple times to request looser restrictions, but the meetings had been repeatedly canceled.
The Alaska Department of Corrections had halted all in-person visitations at prisons and jails last March, when the virus was first detected in the state.
State officials had said that they implemented the safety precautions to prevent an outbreak at the state s crowded jails.