Before we give all credit for bungling the coronavirus response to Donald Trump, let’s acknowledge that our very own governor, Mike Dunleavy, also made – and continues to make – important contributions to the unfolding public health disaster right here in Alaska.
Dunleavy, in announcing his emergency shutdown of the state, exempted from 14-day quarantine essential workers, including the guys arriving in our town to pave four acres of paradise and put up a parking lot on what used to be our scenic harbor.
Also exempted are the critical equipment operators making it possible for Alaskans and visitors alike to zoom 80 mph – instead of 60 – through one of the world’s most stunning scenic landscapes, fish and eagles be damned.
When borough officials very ominously announced the shutdown, with the shelter-in-place and quarantine requirements, a few folks tuned into the teleconference had the temerity to ask, “If all these requirements are in place to save lives, why is it that construction workers from Anchorage needn’t adhere to them?”
Borough staffer Carolann Wooten spilled the beans, saying in so many words, “The governor decided that, well, we have to have SOME economy!”
There it was, the loophole you could drive a D-9 Cat through: The little guy bites the bullet so the big guys can rake it in. You, Mister Gift Shop Owner, how much did you donate to the Dunleavy for Governor campaign, anyhow?
As Winston Churchill might have mused, never in the field of human health have so many risked so much for so little asphalt. With the exception of examples like Apple computer factory slave laborers throwing themselves out dormitory windows in China, rarely do we witness such a brazen act of profits put before people.
Some residents asked the Haines Borough Assembly to flout Dunleavy’s directive and to keep us all healthy despite the wishes of the Gorilla from Wasilla.
But Haines Borough leaders, lion-hearted against library patrons and skinny Mud Bay types, tend to go limp when it’s time to buck anyone or anything from Juneau or Washington, D.C.
Sitka’s local government had no such problem, adopting a quarantine requirement for all arriving seasonal workers, Dunleavy’s directive be damned.
Still to be explained by Dunleavy or anyone in his administration is what public health rationale was used in creating exceptions to quarantine, especially for towns like Haines, with its two-bed clinic and zero resources for longtime intensive care.
Dunleavy is buds with Trump, so it’s not a big surprise that the governor announced last week he would be relaxing Alaska’s COVID precautions.
I was able to get on Tuesday’s live, public-radio call-in show and I asked the governor, “What person initiated the partial reopening? Did Dr. Zink look at the numbers and phone the governor and say, ‘Hey it’s not looking so bad, you can relax things a bit.”? Or did the governor say, ‘We’ve got to get the economy going, what can I do to push this thing?’” I also told the governor I didn’t want a “This-was-a-group-decision” answer.
I wanted to know whose idea it was. It wasn’t a trick question.
Like all politicians trying to dodge responsibility, Dunleavy responded, “This was a group decision,” but he added, “As governor, I take responsibility for it.”
Now it’s a safe bet that if Dr. Zink had initiated the partial opening, Dunleavy would have trumpeted this important fact from hell to breakfast. So a reasonable person can only conclude that last week’s decision to partially open the state was based not on science, but on politics.
Dunleavy is under threat of recall. Trump is lagging in the opinion polls. Both are in need of a political victory and re-opening the nation or state amount to a gamble that would pay off handsomely for each of them, if it works.
Unfortunately, it’s also a gamble that puts lives at risk. In Haines, we have a large elderly population living in close quarters at Haines Assisted Living, the Soboleff-McRae facility, Haines Senior Village and Tlingit-Haida Senior Apartments.
For their health and for yours, please maintain all precautions.