Cautiously reopening Alaska

ANCHORAGE — Gov. Mike Dunleavy announced more plans to safely reopen Alaska at his daily COVID-19 press conference with Alaska’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Anne Zink and Department of Health and Social Services Commissioner Adam Crum Thursday in Anchorage.

Dunleavy expressed his desire for Alaskans to go take a drive and go camping, as campgrounds are one of the many businesses with easing restrictions announced Wednesday that were posted on the state website.

“We have to put health first. We don’t know where the pandemic is going to go. We all believe it’s real after looking at Italy and New York and on the phone with governors it’s very real to a number of governors,” said Dunleavy. “There’s a big of excitement that were potentially looking at a new beginning.”

On Friday, two more Alaskans tested positive for coronavirus. That lifts the state’s total to 338. There have been 11,982 tests administered in the state. That brought Alaska’s total percentage of those who have tested positive down to 2.8 percent.

“It’s great to continue to see that downward trend,” Zink said during a press conference Friday.

It was at 2.9 percent Thursday.

As Zink went through a presentation, Thursday she noted the 115 different test sites available across Alaska. Zink said that the website would soon feature a graph of people who are actively experiencing symptoms, people who died and people who have recovered from COVID-19 on the website, showing a preview of the decline in rise of new active cases.

“As the governor mentioned you know, we expect to see more cases particularly as people start to mix and the big goal is to make sure that we’re not really getting to that exponential climb, that we’re not starting to get a whole bunch of cases all at once and we start to get rapid transmission where the system becomes overwhelmed,” said Zink.

Of the state’s 338 total cases, 208 are now considered recovered cases.

“More than half of the folks that were infected have now recovered. These are good numbers. These are good numbers. These are numbers that demonstrate to us again that we can take those steps methodically in a calculated fashion to get back to doing some of the work,” said Dunleavy.

No new cases were reported out of the Mat-Su since Wednesday when the total number of active cases climbed to 20.

Zink also discussed the significance of the epidemiology curve and how positive cases are being repositioned on the graph to the time when they first could’ve contracted COVID-19.

“This conversation about total positive cases and again, this isn’t a cumulative total. We’re really curious about active cases and new cases because that’s really what matters the most for this epidemiology,” said Zink.

As Crum took the podium to discuss changes to Health Mandate 16 allowing intrastate travel and an additional Health Mandate 17 that goes into effect Friday morning providing guidelines for commercial fishermen, information on the mandates was being added to the state website.

“Throughout this process I really appreciate as the governor said the willingness of Alaskans to work with us. As we move forward, we try to do these protective measures and because of this we’ve been successful thus far. Our numbers have been able to look very good we need to stay diligent on this as we look to see how this is going to evolve through the spring and summer months, but Dr. Zink had mentioned we have these protective measure and metrics that we’re going to continue to look at to make sure that we’re doing the right thing, that we move forward, we can comfortably and safely and responsibly move into phase two and then further,” said Crum.

Crum discussed how the state’s website was being updated with information on child care centers and day camps on how to safely conduct business. Crum discussed additional measures for best hygiene practices for hotels, campgrounds and rentable cabins to conduct business. Crum said that gyms and athletic facilities are being limited to outdoor recreation activities limited to 20 people with social distancing measures in place. Fishing charters will be permitted to take one quarter of their license capacity out on trips or one entire household. Health Mandate 17 offered health protocols to ensure fishing communities safety for commercial fishing operations and added that each vessel’s captain must sign an acknowledgement form.

“This was put together with a lot of statewide input working with stakeholder groups, working with communities, getting their information, talking with them and this is trying to fill the gap to where plans form processors or fleet plans didn’t take care of, so individuals can look at this and it standardizes so communities understand what these vessels coming in are expected to do, how can we respond together and make sure that we are protecting Alaska while at the same time responsibly developing our resources,” said Crum.

Both Crum and Dunleavy took time to thank business owners for what they have done.

Prior to being asked by reporters about enforcement capability of mandates at various communities and businesses throughout the state as he has been asked multiple times throughout his daily press conferences, Dunleavy said that Alaskans would do the brunt of the enforcement themselves.

“The state doesn’t have to do anything really to compel Alaskans. That’s not what we’re about, that’s not what I’m about,” said Dunleavy.

Dunleavy encouraged Alaskans to take their families and travel within the state, but to remain on the road system and prevent spreading of COVID-19 into rural communities off the road system. Dunleavy pointed out that without an intrastate travel ban and a lack of influx of summer tourists, Alaskans can have more space in their favorite destinations often overcrowded by Outside residents.

“We’ve got a big state,” said Dunleavy. “There’s a lot to see.”