Controversy heats up again over state’s health emergency declaration

The politics of the state COVID-19 emergency health declaration are heating up again.

Conservatives are opposing the declaration in the belief, which is mistaken, that it enables the state and local governments to restrict business activity and require face masks.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy has said this isn’t the case, and that restrictions and face masks are matters for municipalities, not the state. Still, there’s a feeling that the state emergency declaration creates an environment for local governments, Anchorage being the prime example, to order limits on customers and personal spacing in bars and restaurants.

It’s an infringement on personal liberty, critics say, although health officials can trace spikes in infections to lack of social spacing and not wearing masks in public spaces.

For a while it seemed the steam had evaporated from the controversy. Dunleavy sponsored bills at the start of the legislative session to extend the declaration but the delays in organizing the state House meant that no bill could pass by the Feb. 14 deadline, so the declaration expired.

The Senate version of the governor’s extension bill, in Senate Bill 56, bogged down in the Senate Finance Committee, where it has been since Feb. 12. A Senate floor motion to move the from the finance committee failed 11-6, along partisan lines.

Meanwhile, the governor has backed away from his earlier support. In a press conference Dunleavy essentially said the emergency was over, and that Alaska was moving in a “recovery” mode.

Health providers disagreed, arguing that the declaration allowed for important waivers from federal rules that gave them important flexibility in responding to COVID-19. There appear to be other consequences of the expiration. The lapse of mandatory airport testing, which was possible under the declaration, has led to spikes of infections in small communities like Petersburg, in Southeast Alaska.

With the governor’s bill SB 56 stalled in the Senate the state House, which is led by a Democrat-Republican coalition, started working on its version of the bill, in House Bill 76. The bill moved from the House Health and Social Services Committee March 10 and the House Finance Committee held hearings on the bill March 11 and 15.

Meanwhile, there are reports that a proposed Senate Finance substitute has been drafted, but it has yet to appear.

The disagreement appears to be mainly on the declaration. State Health and Social Services Commissioner Adam Crum told the House committee Monday at most of the problems created by the expiration can be solved by changing state statutes and most the changes needed are in House Bill 76 without the emergency declaration.

But it’s not clear that’s really the case, health providers say, and to avoid uncertainties for physicians and hospitals passing the emergency declaration as a part of either the House or Senate bill provides certainty.

“There is no harm or unintended consequences to passing this legislation (with the declaration) In fact, there are only unintended consequences and harm if this is not passed,” Jared Kosin, CEO of the Alaska State Hospital and Nursing Home Association, told the House committee Monday.

“It gives our hospitals and nursing homes the compliance certainty (with federal rules) we have been aggressively seeking for a month now,” since the declaration expired, he said.

A disaster declaration is a legal mechanism. “Alaskans may not see it or experience it in everyday life, but Alaska’s health care providers do,” Kosin said.

The legislation is also needed to expedite specialty medical care with out-of-state heath providers through telehealth, and it’s also important in allowing mandatory airport testing, which is important in detecting variants of the virus if they show up, he said.

It’s also needed to secure $8 million per month in emergency food assistance payments for unemployed Alaskans.

Municipal officials agree with Kosin.

In a letter to the House committee, Homer mayor Ken Castner said, “Unlike some states, the State of Alaska does not have broad public health powers. In Alaska, public health measures are directly linked with the disaster powers. The tools associated with the disaster declaration provides a safety net for the governor, his administration, and local governments to respond flexibly and strategically.”

“Reinstating the disaster declaration assures the State’s authority to distribute vaccines through mass vaccine clinics, procure and direct scarce supplies, and suspend certain statutes and regulations to allow health care providers and businesses to perform efficiently under the current circumstances,” Castner said.

The mayor said he is particularly concerned about what nonrenewal means for the state’s vaccination effort going forward, and whether the health care system can quickly respond should the virus, or variants of the virus, cause a rebound of cases.

Not all letters to the committee were in favor, however.

“I see these policies put in place infringing on our constitutional God-given rights. People are experiencing depression, suicide, loss of income, anxiety from wearing masks, adverse effects to un-tested, non-FDA approved only (as) pushed through for emergency use,” said one letter. Other letters linked the vaccination effort to an alleged plot by billionaire Bill Gates to depopulate the world. “There are many people who will not accept an experimental and potentially life-altering vaccine. We should not have to,” the writer said.