Alaska continues to lead nation in COVID-19 testing

ANCHORAGE — Gov. Mike Dunleavy held a press conference on Tuesday to address the CARES act money distribution to Alaskans and current COVID-19 numbers in Alaska. A total of 79 new cases were announced in Alaska today with eight new cases in the Mat-Su. Alaska now has had 5,247 total cases of COVID-19 and 4,397 resident cases with 3,717 of those remaining active.

“It’s also really great to see our numbers starting to trend downward here,” said Alaska’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Anne Zink. “We continue to be the most tested state in the nation and continue to try to make it easily accessible to every Alaskan no matter where they are in the state.”

On Tuesday, Dunleavy announced that the total number of Alaskans who have died due to COVID-19 climbed to 29. During Zink’s brief presentation, she mentioned again how a disproportionate amount of young adults are becoming infected with COVID-19 although they are not seeing high rates of hospitalization.

“Because we have so many people in their 20’s to 30’s and 30’s to 40’s, if you get covid in that age group it’s fairly low likelihood that you’ll need hospitalization. They actually do make up a pretty good chunk of our total hospitalizations just because so many people in that age group are getting covid,” said Dr. Zink.

Dunelavy brought on Department of Commerce Commissioner Julie Anderson and Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority Executive Director Alan Weitzner to discuss the ramping up of CARES act grant application processing by the Department of Commerce, AIDEA, and the Juneau Economic Development Council.

“We’re making some strategic investments to allow maximum economic activity to occur,” said Dunleavy.“The amount of money that comes in from the Federal Government is not necessarily going to be enough to address every single issue with every business in the state of Alaska, but we are all going to try and do the best that we can.”

Anderson said that 3,665 CARES act applications had been received as of Tuesday morning totaling approximately $169 million, leaving $100 million in grant funding still available. A total of 1,091 grant applications were submitted after August 6 and are currently being processed, and the 1,000 grant applications processed by Credit Union 1 distributed over $41 million. However, Credit Union 1 is no longer processing applications and small businesses that recently became eligible were encouraged to read the checklist and frequently asked questions on akcaresonline.org.

“Our grant approvals have doubled in the past 10 dyas to over 1,000 grants approved so far between Credit Union 1, the state and Juneau Economic Development Council, 55 employees are going to be processing applications by next week. So we’ve beefed up the number of folks that are actually going to handle the processing,” said Dunleavy.

Weitzner said that Alaskans with inquiries can call 771-3019 or email grants@akcaresonline.org.

Before schools started on Wednesday, Dunleavy offered his thoughts on the reopening of Alaska’s schools to in-person instruction for the first time since March.

“ We’re going to cross our fingers. We’re going to hope for the best but we’ll deal with whatever happens with regard to the opening of school. We are optimistic but the virus is still with us,” said Dunleavy.

Dunleavy has been asked dozens of times by reporters about a statewide mask mandate during his COVID-19 press conferences, and often responded that he believes individual governments have that responsibility. After the Mat-Su Borough reiterated their stance on their lack of health powers as a second class borough along with the Kenai Peninsula, Fairbanks and others, Dunleavy again responded that he believes the power lies with local governments.

“It’s the view of our officials in the Department of Law, our lawyers that the boroughs can implement health powers. We will also assist those entities that wish to do that. What I mean by that is we have cities and municipalities and communities without municipal governments that have for example restricted non essential travel since the beginning of this pandemic and we’ve supported those communities in that endeavor,” said Dunleavy. “We’ve had these conversations with municipalities and I know there are some disagreements amongst lawyers but again we are offering the ability and support through our Department of Law to work with local municipal lawyers to walk through this process.”