State to lift mandate on elective medical procedures

Gov. Mike Dunleavy has said state officials are looking at ways to reopen certain economic sectors in Alaska. The first step will be in the healthcare industry.

Dunleavy said the state will lift the temporary mandate against elective healthcare procedures during a press conference in Anchorage Tuesday evening.

“This week, starting today we’re going to start to roll out ideas, concepts around how do we get back to as close as possible as we once were. We’re not going to get back there immediately,” said Dunleavy. “We want to try and get back to as normal as possible we all do and so a part of what we’re going to look at is how do we measure that, how do we know that what we’re doing if we start to, for example open up certain sectors of the economy which we need to do and we want to do, but we’re not going to do it at the expense of the health of Alaskans. How do we go about doing that? How do we measure what we’re doing? Is it working or is it not.”

Last week, state officials issued a mandate banning all elective medical procedures. Dunleavy said this was done to help ensure the state would have enough personal protective equipment in case there was a spike in coronavirus cases, and to reduce close contact.

“We were pretty sure at that time it was going to be tough to get this equipment because all other states and countries across the globe were scrambling to hang on to this PPE as we call it,” said Dunleavy. “We feel we’re at the point now where we’re getting a handle on the PPE and that’s one of the reasons why we’re going to be opening up that sector.”

Dunleavy said state officials will continue to monitor COVID-19 statistics and can reissue a mandate against elective health care procedures if needed. Dunleavy did not say exactly when the ban would be lifted.

Dunleavy also announced that restaurants with a liquor license can sell beer or wine with meals and have it available for delivery or curbside pick up. Dunleavy also clarified that fishermen may leave their communities to travel to waterways or hunting grounds but refrain from going out into the community and stay six feet away from other fishermen.

“Yes people can fish for sport and personal use and you know there’s an encouragement to stay as close to home as possible but it’s not a mandate, just an encouragement and you should bring all your supplies with you,” said Dunleavy. “I have to audition people this is not, don’t misinterpret what we’re saying, not a full blown open everything is back to normal that’s not the case, but we feel that our numbers, we’ve done a pretty good job on the numbers and it’s not like we’re rewarding ourselves, it’s more along the lines of we’re doing the right thing and that we may have that capacity to start to open this economy a little more because we need to do that eventually we all know that.”

On Tuesday, 8 new cases of coronavirus were reported and the death of a Wasilla woman who was not treated for her illness in the Mat-Su Valley. On Tuesday, Alaska had a 3.4 percent positive rate, and on Wednesday that rate stayed at 3.4 percent.

“We are trying to use the testing we have in the most strategic way possible and trying to test broadly so we are doing what we can to keep those cases down but we really believe that increasing testing will also drive that percentage down,” said Alaska’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Anne Zink. “Please be aggressive about testing. We really need that partnership with you all on the frontlines to be doing testing. We’re seeing significant increase in our capacity to test in the state of Alaska in this next week and as a result we’re pushing that out quickly.”

Two new hospitalizations were recorded bringing the state’s total up to 32 but no new deaths have occurred, keeping Alaska’s total at nine. The Mat-Su has no new cases and holds at 15 with three travel associated cases and eight local cases. The Mat-Su Borough made a jump from .77 percent of the total population having been tested to .96 percent, as 1,022 residents have now been tested for COVID 19. According to new information on the data hub, the Mat-Su currently has four people hospitalized with coronavirus. Only six of the 14 total Intensive Care Unit beds are occupied and no ventilators are being used, leaving 17 available. A total of 53 inpatient beds are occupied with 72 more available.

“You can see that what we did is we fundamentally changed the projection of this disease in the state of Alaska and I think this is really powerful.I think Alaskans have the ability to shape this curve and we know that we’ve got the tools we know that we’ve got what it takes to do that. Hopefully we can do that in a more precise manner specifically with testing and isolating individuals rather than kind of these larger measures and that’s our goal is to unwind as much of this as possible while keeping that curve low,” said Zink.

Zink highlighted the 13 people who reported recovery from COVID 19 on Tuesday and said that those people may play a crucial role in future antibody or serology testing that is not yet being used in Alaska. Zink stressed that COVID 19 presents with an array of broad symptoms and that testing must be aggressive to remain effective. Among the data Zink prepared were logarithmic and linear scales of Alaska’s COVID 19 numbers compared to other states, including adjustments for population. While Alaska started off on a similar curve as many other states, numbers have tapered down recently. Zink compared the coronavirus to a forest fire in comparing Alaska’s residents to kindling, hoping that a needed vaccine will be produced shortly to prevent future illness as people are continually exposed.

“We’re in this together as a state. We want to make sure that we’re supporting every Alaskan, no matter how rural or urban they live, are supported and really there's been just tremendous partnership in this state thinking about this problem,” said Zink. “One of the goals that we’ve had for every community we set out since the very beginning is that every Alaskan in that community has to have access to testing that does not have a financial barrier to it.”