MUNI ATTORNEY EXPLAINS: NEW COURT HAS NEW FOCUS ON RIGHTS
By SCOTT LEVESQUE
Anchorage’s acting mayor retained her authority on Tuesday to keep the city’s economy locked down for the rest of the month.
Emergency Order 16 is on the books until at least Dec. 31 after an effort by Assembly members Jamie Allard and Crystal Kennedy failed to wedge open the strict business and personal freedom sanctions from the Administration.
Assembly members directed questions at the Austin Quinn-Davidson Administration about EO 16 and its effectiveness. After all, Assembly member Kennedy pointed out, Quinn-Davidson appears to have followed all of her own mandates and protocols, but she still came down with COVID-19.
When asked by Assembly Member Kameron Perez-Verdia whether the virus can be even controlled, Heather Harris, the director of the Anchorage Health Department, said it can, in fact, be controlled.
“Yes,” she said. “There’s ample research that shows that some of our primary mitigating factors is around wearing a mask, maintaining a distance, and washing your hands.”
“And so, as we evaluated options in these emergency orders it was really important to come back to that, and these measures are all informed by that baseline context around being able to maintain mask usage, keeping our distance, and washing our hands,” Harris said.
Harris’s explanation aligns with the CDC’s recommendations for reducing transmission in densely populated areas: Hand washing, masks, and social distancing are the main preventatives to lowering transmission.
If hand washing, masks, and distancing are the most critical factors in controlling the virus, why is Anchorage locking down its businesses? Assembly member Allard probed that riddle in a number of her questions of the Administration.
Allard, an opponent of the lockdowns, also asked the Administration why churches are allowed to be open (which Allard supports) while many congregations are clearly not following the restrictions outlined in Emergency Order 16. She was pointing out the regulatory dissonance in the order.
Harris summarized the emergency order’s recommendations for churches. Municipal Attorney Kate Vogel interjected during Harris’ response to expound on why the municipality is easing off of churches — it’s because of the U.S. Supreme Court’s shift back to the constitution, she said.
“With the new makeup of the United States Supreme Court, they did change course a little bit from where they’d been in the spring when they had Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the bench,” Vogel said.
“There is a new makeup of the court, and they elevated, as I said, the importance, the constitutional importance, of being able to gather for the purpose of worship.”
Assembly member Kennedy followed up with a comment that controlling the virus is not apparently working, arguing that closing down businesses within the Municipality only drives Anchorage residents to spend their money elsewhere — including the Valley — further damaging Anchorage’s own economy.
Attorney Vogel responded, saying it is Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s fault that people in Anchorage are going to the valley to shop and dine:
“I think, from a legal standpoint, I can only say we have a certain jurisdiction, and we can do what we can to stop spread within our jurisdiction. The governor could be taking stronger action. It [mask mandate] would be statewide, and it would alleviate some of these concerns about people going to the lowest common denominator in terms of finding the place with the least restriction and doing their shopping there.”
With that, the Municipal Attorney of Anchorage had just called the Matanuska-Susitna Borough the lowest common denominator because it doesn’t have a mask mandate or business closures.
Among other edicts, EO16 mandates that everyone in Anchorage limit their outings and physical contact with those outside their households. Gatherings are limited and people are to wear masks when in public.
Most damaging to livelihoods is that restaurant and bars are closed except for curbside pickup and delivery, and all businesses are ruled by EO 16’s reduced occupancy mandates.
The entire Emergency Order is at this link:
Assembly member Meg Zaletel, who is the subject of a recall attempt, said she could not support the amendment to remove a number of restrictions, because it “doesn’t feel strategic in nature.”
From the post:
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“Lockdown”. “Sanctions”. “Mandates”. “Emergency orders”. “Regulatory dissonance”. “Edicts”.
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This is the radical, nanny-state left in a nutshell.
Yup. Nowhere was personal responsibility, self reliance, choice, or freedom mentioned.
Mrs. Harris of the health department claims she can “control” the virus. Really? Anchorage has been under a mask mandate for months and the virus is still around……So Mrs. Harris: “Prove it”
Many thanks to Jamie Allard and Crystal Kennedy for asking challenging questions.
As an aside it is interesting that the necessity for virus mitigation measures depend on the make-up of the supreme court. Mrs. Vogel’s comments sound very much like CYA. Her inadvertent admission appears to me that she wishes to avoid constitutional challenges.
Could the arbitrary closing of businesses be construed as a seizure of property by the government, in violation of the fourth amendment, one wonders….?
They pick their own studies to justify the tyrannical control. University of Copenhagen in Denmark conducted a study and proved even surgical mask do not stop viruses. This is all about control not science.
She didn’t say she can control it. She didn’t say mandates control it. She said it can be controlled.
Brush up on your reading comprehension and critical thinking. skills.
People in Anchorage, other parts of Alaska and in the Lower States don’t want to control it. If we had responded to Pearl Harbor the way we have responded to this viral attack we’d be speaking Japanese or German now. Americans have sunk to an unimaginable low in our response to this pandemic.
People, and only people collectively, can control viral spread. The data is at worldometers dot info. check it out.
Three cheers for semantics!
Frankly I reject her entire premise. Virus control, by definition, is only achieved if an adequate number of individuals have been exposed to the virus, either by direct infection or vaccination, in order to create a large pool of immune persons, therefor halting or slowing the virus spread to the point were it does no longer pose a significant threat.
Your definition may have some merit globally, in some cases.
There are, however, counterexamples which render it invalid and of little value. The first SARS-CoV virus of early 21 st century flat disappeared from the planet w/o ever infecting a significant fraction of the population or development of an effective vaccine. It was eliminated by testing people displaying symptoms, isolating (quarantining) suspected cases and implementing travel restriction. That virus was largely spread by symptomatic carriers ( contrast the current SARS-CoV-2 which can be spread by asymptomatic carriers – the prevalence has not been nailed down yet but appears to be a double digits, maybe large, percent of all infected)
Several countries and small local areas have effectively “controlled” spread of SARS-CoV-2 “to the point were [sic] it does no longer pose a significant threat.” Alaska probably could have as did some communities/cities in Alaska.
Alaskans (and generally too many Americans) enjoy “pain.” Their desires have been accommodated and this will go on here for a much longer period than if we had cooperatively attacked the problem from the git-go.
Saddle up and enjoy the ride
She didn’t say she can control the virus, she said the virus can be controlled.
The proof is the fact it has been controlled in other countries. Several tens of those have less than 2 deaths per million population. The USA has 909 and only ten have had higher.
The precautions mentioned are effective. Mandates are not effective unless they are followed by the people.
Groups which don’t follow the precautions will be adversely affect at a higher rate than those which do are. When this is over the “Balance of Power” will shift to weaken those groups who have higher adverse effects.
Heather Harris, the director of the Anchorage Health Department, said it can, in fact, be controlled.
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“Yes,” she said. “There’s ample research that shows that some of our primary mitigating factors is around wearing a mask, maintaining a distance, and washing your hands.”
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I would be nice if she has provided some of that research.
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And, there is as much, if not more evidence that these measures do not have any measurable effect whatsoever.
In today’s lesson we find out that “experts” are human, and susceptible to all human biases, prejudices, and errors as everyone else. From Ms. Harris’ statements, it is clear that she believes masks and lockdowns are helping, and reinforces those beliefs by reading data and information that supports her belief.
The problem arises when a public official recommends a course of action they know has severe adverse impacts on tens of thousands of people when they have not played devil’s advocate. When they have not researched the information that does not support their stance.
CBMT- I’m removing links to prevent unintended or intended malicious coding. – sd
Makes sense.
For those that want to see some of the information that contradicts “masks work” search for:
1. Post-lockdown SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid screening in nearly ten million residents of Wuhan, China article in Nature Communications
2. The Daily Signal are Lockdowns Necessary
3. Fee dot org Lockdowns not linked with lower COVID death rates
4. AIER dot org Even a Military-Enforced Quarantine Can’t Stop the Virus, Study Reveals
5. wall street journal Case for Mask Mandate Rests on Bad Data
Get out there and learn people. The experts have just as high a likelihood of making errors as anyone else.
The growing body of serious research on the subject of SARS-CoV-2 virus spread is available to you at scholar dot google dot com. Search it and take off your confirmation bias glasses to get the whole picture. Properly used, masks work (not 100%), social distancing works (not 100%), washing hands works (not 100%). The combination can pretty well quench this thing if we all agreed to try it.
The subject has appeared here before. I and others provided pretty convincing evidence from the published literature of the time.
Come on! The Alaska Left, including the Anchorage Assembly and counsel, wants Dunleavy to take stronger action so that conservative constituencies will be disenfranchised and angry. The Left wants elected and appointed Republicans to be stupid and dogmatic. Failing that the Left wants elected and appointed Republicans to be stupid and greedy.
No one can own a church determining its size and hours.
Repeat, politely but firmly, after me, “No”. To paraphrase, Government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed. I do not consent.
An interesting thought on this – those who insist on engaging in risky behavior; ignore masking, distancing and washing, will as a group and on a percent basis, suffer more deaths and significant long term health effects (5 – 6 times as many as deaths last I saw) as those who do.will. For a moment think how this would work out if the mortality of COVID-19 were the 34% of MERS.
So, what is the problem then?
Let the virus take them. You keep up your regime, protect yourself, and you will get through this just fine. Let the idiots refuse to take appropriate actions die.
Certainly a possible approach. Don’t suppose the thought didn’t occur to me. I guess I’m just not quite callous enough to have taken that path.
However, upon considering this is a PUBLIC health issue because the idiots don’t just get sick and die, they may spread the burden on society for a long time..
Since there are INCURABLE STUPID idiots and EDUCABLE naive IGNORANT idiots attending these dense gatherings; it seemed appropriate to try – maybe save some of the ignorant and their contacts, intentional and not.
Church gatherings, along with other dense gatherings (see the Biogen meeting, Albany Georgia funeral, North Carolina churches) have been responsible for super-spreader events which appear to be the source of a major fraction of the cases in the USA and around the world. This virus doesn’t seem to follow the rules for typical Ro spreading person to person spread viruses such as influenza. It turns out managing spread of viruses that spread primary from clusters is better accomplished by finding the source (superspreader) of the cluster and tracing from there while managing spread of flu type is effective the way we’ve been tracing forward from any case. Our “contact tracing” strategy may have less efficacy than earlier thought.
People are still gathering without masks. That, and that alone, is keeping the virus going! Stop going to church, stay out of bars and restaurants, control your kids, stop letting people in your house or going to their houses, everyone wear a mask in public and the numbers will drop dramatically! The mayor got it because people without masks were constantly in her face!!
“People are still gathering without masks. That, and that alone, is keeping the virus going!”
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Prove it.
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Do you have something other than your opinion to back that statement up?
You are pretty certain of yourself, but… I somehow think you have not adequately researched your statement. Please back it up with something.
Yours is not a solution and that should be clear to you based on current trends. If you lock everyone down tight enough, sure you can slow viral progress. It’d cost you everything and once you decided that we should all climb out from under our masks the numbers would climb exponentially from that date forward.
In order for your proposal to work at minimal transfer rates over the long term you’d need to eliminate churches, bars, restaurants, friends, etc… and plan on your kids being dullards as adults.
People without masks were constantly in the A.M’s face? Really? Where and when did that ever happen?
My church is going to start serving lunch and dinner. The visiting pastor is Rev. A. Kriner from as far away as midtown.
What really burns me is that although the acting mayor may think she’s stopping the virus she is not because all of the Anchorage people come out here to the Valley and infect people. Our numbers were low until she decided to close everything again. Thanks a lot. Not.
What about all the valley people who drive to Anchorage five or six days a week to and from work? There’s a lot more of them than the few who go to some restaurant in the valley.
Why should the church membership worry about Covid-19? They’re taught that they’re all going to heaven immediately when they die.
What an evil teaching. Yashua (Jesus) distinctly said that the dead are “asleep”, totally unaware of human events, meaning that they’re not in some happy heaven.
Otherwise, would the dead have to be first returned to their dead remains, to then rise from the dead and join Him in the clouds? That would be a second death, which is to be avoided.
The baseline teachings in the Bible are that we cannot have consciousness apart from a body, a “container”. Our bodies give us that vital “interface”.
How this applies to the issue at hand? “Thou shall not tempt the Lord thy God.” High density gatherings may be no different than dancing with serpents and drinking poisons.
There’s a Cosmic Grand Canyon between mere religion and true faith.
“Am I really holy enough for God to spare me from plague? Am I holier than the ones who will catch it? Only one way to find out. We’re off to church!”
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