The next election takes place in mid-March to April 5, 2022 and the campaigning has already begun.
A host of big names in the business world are hosts of a fundraiser for three candidates for Anchorage Assembly — Kathy Henslee, District 4; Randy Sulte, District 6; and Stephanie Taylor, District 5. The meet-and-greet fundraiser will be held at the Petroleum Club, 3301 C Street, on Wednesday, Nov. 10, at 5-7 pm.
The number of new cases of Covid-19 in Alaska continues to fall, with 300 new diagnoses on Sunday, Nov. 7. Of all tests administered, the rate of positive tests is now at 7.6 percent. When Anchorage was closed down in May of 2020 under Mayor Ethan Berkowitz, the positivity rate in the state was 8.5 percent.
Week over week, cases have dropped by 10 percent. The number of Alaskans in the hospital with Covid-19 has also dropped to 139, with just 18 on ventilators. For comparison, on Oct. 24, there were 244 Covid hospitalizations.
While in October the percentage of patients hospitalized with Covid went as high as 22 percent of all hospitalizations, the current percentage is down to 13.6 percent.
A total of 138,161 Alaskans have been diagnosed with Covid since March of 2020.
As for hospital capacity, most hospitals in the urban centers of Alaska now have beds available in their ICU units and non-ICU units, as seen in the chart above. There are 354 non-ICU beds available and 28 ICU beds available in Alaska.
According to Becker’s Hospital Review, Alaska ranks about in the middle of positivity rates among the states, with Florida at the bottom at about 2.9 percent, Alaska ranks with the third highest rate of testing per capita among the states.
Idaho: 53.5%
New Daily Cases: 0
Tests per 100k: 77.5
Iowa: 47.4%
New Daily Cases: 0
Tests per 100k: 47.6
Oklahoma: 34.8%
New Daily Cases: 0
Tests per 100k: 44.2
Kansas: 33%
New Daily Cases: 0
Tests per 100k: 84.3
New Jersey: 18.1%
New Daily Cases: 926
Tests per 100k: 76
Utah: 15.5%
New Daily Cases: 0
Tests per 100k: 319.1
Maine: 15%
New Daily Cases: 0
Tests per 100k: 250.6
North Dakota: 14.7%
New Daily Cases: 196
Tests per 100k: 441.3
Minnesota: 14.4%
New Daily Cases: 0
Tests per 100k: 490
Ohio: 13.7%
New Daily Cases: 4363
Tests per 100k: 240.7
Michigan: 12.8%
New Daily Cases: 0
Tests per 100k: 386.7
Wyoming: 12.8%
New Daily Cases: 0
Tests per 100k: 458.8
South Dakota: 12.7%
New Daily Cases: 0
Tests per 100k: 144.5
Montana: 10.8%
New Daily Cases: 0
Tests per 100k: 578
Pennsylvania: 10.2%
New Daily Cases: 3385
Tests per 100k: 315.7
Wisconsin: 9.9%
New Daily Cases: 0
Tests per 100k: 426.8
Arizona: 9.5%
New Daily Cases: 3231
Tests per 100k: 445
New Hampshire: 9.5%
New Daily Cases: 0
Tests per 100k: 766
Kentucky: 9.3%
New Daily Cases: 0
Tests per 100k: 270
Arkansas: 9.2%
New Daily Cases: 266
Tests per 100k: 157.1
Missouri: 8.5%
New Daily Cases: 742
Tests per 100k: 209.8
New Mexico: 8.5%
New Daily Cases: 0
Tests per 100k: 602.2
Colorado: 8.4%
New Daily Cases: 0
Tests per 100k: 608
Mississippi: 8.4%
New Daily Cases: 0
Tests per 100k: 127.7
Nevada: 8.1%
New Daily Cases: 0
Tests per 100k: 347.6
Tennessee: 8.1%
New Daily Cases: 0
Tests per 100k: 170.4
West Virginia: 7.7%
New Daily Cases: 1038
Tests per 100k: 576.8
Virginia: 7.6%
New Daily Cases: 0
Tests per 100k: 194
Alaska: 7.5%
New Daily Cases: 0
Tests per 100k: 1091.4
Nebraska: 7.3%
New Daily Cases: 0
Tests per 100k: 464.3
Alabama: 7%
New Daily Cases: 292
Tests per 100k: 166.6
Indiana: 5.8%
New Daily Cases: 0
Tests per 100k: 427.3
Texas: 5.6%
New Daily Cases: 789
Tests per 100k: 200.5
North Carolina: 5.5%
New Daily Cases: 0
Tests per 100k: 306
Oregon: 5.4%
New Daily Cases: 0
Tests per 100k: 454.3
Delaware: 5%
New Daily Cases: 291
Tests per 100k: 510.3
Georgia: 4.1%
New Daily Cases: 0
Tests per 100k: 233.1
South Carolina: 3.6%
New Daily Cases: 0
Tests per 100k: 410.3
Vermont: 3.6%
New Daily Cases: 405
Tests per 100k: 1712.8
Louisiana: 2.8%
New Daily Cases: 0
Tests per 100k: 370.9
Florida: 2.4%
New Daily Cases: 0
Tests per 100k: 301.8
Rhode Island: 2.2%
New Daily Cases: 0
Tests per 100k: 1037.2
Connecticut: 2.1%
New Daily Cases: 0
Tests per 100k: 459
Illinois: 2.1%
New Daily Cases: 0
Tests per 100k: 918.4
Maryland: 2.1%
New Daily Cases: 727
Tests per 100k: 545.4
California: 1.8%
New Daily Cases: 1149
Tests per 100k: 801.9
Massachusetts: 1.8%
New Daily Cases: 0
Tests per 100k: 1122.5
Hawaii: 1.4%
New Daily Cases: 134
Tests per 100k: 528.9
District of Columbia: 1.3%
New Daily Cases: 0
Tests per 100k: 921.8
New York: N/A
New Daily Cases: 3932
Tests per 100k: 1097.7
Washington: N/A
New Daily Cases: 0
Tests per 100k: 0
By JAMIE DONLEY
(Even as they have recently published a barrage of pro-Democrat letters, the Anchorage Daily News refused to publish a shorter version of my below letter. Thank you to Must Read Alaska for doing so.)
Anyone who watched the debacle that was the Democrat National Convention last year saw what was coming:
Now America has incompetence and outright malfeasance at every level of the Biden Administration.
Biden’s approval ratings have now gone lower than President Trump’s ever was. Remember, prior to Covid-19, Trump’s approval rating made him look unbeatable.
Was Trump abrasive at times? Yes. Was he a great President for America, Alaska, and the middle class? Absolutely.
Biden in less than one year has lied more about really important things than Trump ever did, when he exaggerated the size of crowds. Biden has from day one been the great divider.
Even worse, Biden and radical progressives are dividing American families from a fair chance at a successful future. He’s catering to his base, with big liberal policies, crazy radical progressive ideas, and outright anti-common-sense bunk. That is reflected in his polling.
Let’s recap the Biden Administration so far:
The inexcusable failure to use one of the U.S. Department of Defense’s suggested plans and execute a withdrawal from Afghanistan left Americans and billions of military equipment behind.
Even worse his incompetence got Americans killed.
Then he lied about it and bragged about a drone strike that killed innocent civilians. And what about the promise to hold the real evil-doers accountable . . . nothing. Who has Biden held accountable for this debacle? No one but one honorable Marine lieutenant colonel who told the truth about what a failure it was.
Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller was locked up in solitary confinement like a third-world pollical prisoner; even a military judge said it was outrageously improper.
Speaking of political prisoners, while the progressive terrorists that attacked our cities last summer mostly got off scot-free, the Jan. 6 protesters have been treated like Soviet dissidents, locked up without bail in solitary confinement.
What they did was wrong, but the Biden Administration’s violation of their constitutional rights to equal justice is criminal.
The corrupt whitewash of the unjustified killing of an unarmed female protester is a stain on the US Congress. In no way did that killing meet even the most basic use of deadly force criteria that all law enforcement are trained to follow.
Speaking of the Biden Justice Department, what happened to his promise to stay out of the criminal justice process? Biden is constantly on TV telling the Department of Justice what to do, including prosecuting more of his political opponents. His defenders say he is only expressing his opinions that DOJ should be continuing to break the law for illegal partisan purposes, as they did with General Flynn, Russiagate, FISA warrants, and on and on.
Recently, the DOJ Inspector General found over 200 FBI errors, omissions, and lies in just 29 randomly selected FISA applications. Want further proof? The Biden Administration just restored the disgraced liar former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s pension benefits. This was his reward for committing crimes against the people for the Democrats.
Now the Biden White House, DOJ, and the FBI are coming for parents that oppose the evil of racist Marxist Critical Race Theory in our public-school classrooms or opposing mask mandates. Republican U.S. Senators have rightfully questioned Attorney General Garland about his conflict due to his family making a fortune selling materials containing elements of Critical Race Theory to schools districts.
Biden is now the father of record inflation which is crushing lower- and middle-class families.
The Department of Transportation under the unqualified Pete Buttigieg has completely failed to address the supply chain breakdown on his watch, which is adding to the inflation nightmare.
Sen. Joe Manchin is correct to predict massive inflation if the Democrats multi-trillion progressive dream list of “human infrastructure” is forced through. It is chock full of anti-energy sector goodies for the “Green New Deal” that directly destroy Alaska’s economy.
According to recent polling, even approval of Biden’s response to Covid-19 is falling fast. He has failed to back China off from threatening Taiwan. North Korea has resumed missile testing. Here in Anchorage his feckless Secretary of State Antony Blinken let himself be lectured by the communist Chinese on human rights.
Anyone with a brain knew Biden’s election was bad for Alaska and Alaska families. ANWR closes down, King Cove Road was blocked, oil development postponed, the list of anti-Alaska policies from national Democrats is long and damaging.
But worst of all is the total lack of accountability by anyone in the Biden Administration and the deep state under Joe Biden. Evil and wrongdoing are flourishing under Biden. It starts with his own son Hunter Biden and the failure to prosecute his multiple federal crimes.
We all know now that candidate Joe Biden lied during the campaign that the solid evidence of his son’s crimes was Russian disinformation and the mainstream media and tech moguls covered it up until after the election.
The FBI has now confirmed Hunter Biden’s laptop was and is real and full of evidence of his crimes.
So, I will take Donald Trump’s successful presidency over Joe Biden’s incompetent nightmare for American families anytime.
Jamie Donley is a mom, community activist, and former member of the Alaska Republican State Central Committee.
A Canadian public health expert who self-identifies as part Tlingit, and part other North American Native, has been placed on leave by the University of Saskatchewan after an investigation by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation found that she has no Native heritage, but is actually of European descent.
Carrie Bourassa, who also calls herself Morning Star Bears, was the subject of a CBC investigation. She is a professor at the university and is the scientific director of the Institute of Indigenous Peoples’ Health for the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, which also suspended her last week.
On Friday, Bourassa, through an anonymous group, claimed that she has the right to “self-identify as an Indigenous Person, within the greater family of Indigenous Peoples in Canada.” She asserted the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act “confirms and legally supports her to Self- identify as an Indigenous Person.”
Read the original CBC investigative story here.
Bourassa’s news release says that the investigation was instigated by a colleague who has attempted to defame her in previous occasions.
A statement released by her Bourassa’s sister Jody Burnett on behalf of her family says Bourassa’s “description of our family is inaccurate, not rooted in fact and moreover is irrelevant to the issue of whether or not Carrie Bourassa is Métis.”
According to the CBC, Bourassa has for 20 years said that she was born into a family with” Métis, Anishnaabe and Tlingit roots” but has not provided documentation to support her claims.
Bourrassa’s defense statement to the media did not address the problem of her potential heritage hoax, but said she has a legal right to call herself indigenous:
“Dr. Carrie Bourassa responds to the investigation of her cultural identity Manācihitowin: a Cree/Michif phrase that translates to ‘let us respect each other’ REGINA, SK – Dr. Carrie Bourassa asserts and claims the right to self-identify as an Indigenous Person, within the greater family of Indigenous Peoples in Canada. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and Canada’s Legislation Bill C-15: the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act confirms and legally supports her to Self- identify as an Indigenous Person. Combined, the International UNDRIP standard and now Canadian Law provides her Métis Heritage, Culture, Status and Citizenry the necessary legal coverage. In spite of flawless work performance, Dr. Carrie Bourassa was previously investigated for alleged misconduct, instigated by a colleague who has been persistent in her attempts to defame Dr. Bourassa. Carrie was cleared on all 5 counts of the baseless complaints and is now being subjected to another investigation by the University of Saskatchewan. She is a valued and respected academic and community health researcher and she is entitled to due-process.
As a result, many people now question the U of S’ ability to protect faculty members whose credibility is challenged and called into question by their peers. It should be noted that the institution did not exercise any form of internal resolution or protections for Dr. Bourassa and as a result, the internal issue has been degraded to a public spectacle led by journalists and not by Indigenous people.
The current investigation has become a national issue of debate and the discussion appears to be setting precedence for quantum criteria for Nationhood, challenging the communities right to claim and custom adopt. This poses multiple and multidimensional threats to ALL Indigenous persons globally, as public debate surrounding Indigenous identity seeks to eradicate decades of work of global Indigenous leaders who fought and won sovereignty over the ability to determine who is, and who is not, Indigenous. Determining Indigeneity is not within the purview of the U of S or any other non-Indigenous led institution. Currently, the only jurisdiction for Institutions/workplaces, etc. is self-declaration. Furthermore, Dr. Bourassa’s employment is not determined by nationhood and she is not in an Indigenous designated role within the U of S, but rather is an Indigenous health leader from within the faculty of Community Health and Epidemiology in the College of Medicine as a tenured professor.
Dr. Carrie Bourassa has not falsely identified as Indigenous nor taken space away from Indigenous peoples, either in the form of student funding, grants or career advancements. She has earned her professional status and merit through hard work, self-funding and sheer determination. She is a catalyst for determining indigeneity in Indigenous communities, grassroots and globally. Officially claimed by traditional medicine people and her Métis people, long before being Métis had any benefits.
NOTE: This statement was prepared by an Indigenous collective who chose anonymity at this time, to minimize additional backlash and punitive action in the forms of lateral violence towards themselves and Dr. Bourassa. Lateral violence is a learned behaviour as a result of internalised colonialism and patriarchal methods of governing and developing a society.
By SEAN MURPHY
I joined Eaglexit two years ago this February. I donate monthly, attend meetings, and now am the chair for the group.
Michael Tavoliero, former chair, is a motivator. He speaks black and white. If you read his material and you are a Marxist or communist, you will probably take action. If you are a conservative, then you too will be motivated to action.
Motivation has its place, and it got me moving. But I am an educator, I want to see our communities educated about the possibility and process of detachment from Anchorage.
You may see this as a political process, but at this junction this is an educational discussion on civics.
As an educator, I have committed to taking on the Chair of Eaglexit with the goal of creating a civics course to inform the local community of their options for Alaska local government. To demean this as a political process is short-sighted and does not encourage a discussion among citizens to ultimately inform themselves and improve our community.
I don’t care which side of the aisle you come from. If you are a community member of Assembly District 2 (AD2), we need to have this discussion for our future and the future of our kids.
Eaglexit is a collection of citizens in AD2 who want to detach our district from the Municipality of Anchorage and make our new municipality in Alaska. We have studied the state constitution and the petition process, we have studied the revenue and expenditures of AD2, and now want to know if you, the public, during these interesting times are will to have a discussion on the civics of Alaska local government.
Over the next couple of months, we are planning to hold several educational sessions, in person or online to explain the process. In explaining the process, we will share with you the constitutional guidelines to detachment, the statutes guiding the establishment of a new municipality and school district and discuss the type of local government which may best serve our citizens.
After the educational sessions we plan on holding some public input sessions in some format to gather your opinions for our new municipality. If the total of your opinions indicate AD2 should move forward with this process, we will start writing our petition to the Local Boundary Commission. That will take some cost in media, polling, and cost for a legal brief.
As I talk to the community I get several kinds of responses, and I understand all of them.
First, will my taxes go up?
Our 2020 studies show a revenue of $62 plus million a year for general government and $105 plus million for education. For a community of 51,000 and a school district of 8,000, that should be sufficient.
Please keep in mind while under the Anchorage jurisdiction AD2’s property taxes alone increased 14.43% from 2019 to 2021, which total from $57,448 million to $65,739 million. We believe our community can do better.
Second, will my services stay the same?
We have an area of 1050 square miles. Our roads are outsourced and maintained through a public/private partnership. Our utilities will all remain in place with no increases resulting from the change in local government.
Most of our assembly district is covered by a volunteer fire department and JBER has its own fire and police, so there may be opportunities for cost savings and better service delivery.
In 2021, as one example, we paid $8 million in property taxes for public safety to the MOA, and we get 3-4 police a day. I think we can do better.
Third response I get is silence: “It can’t be done, or they will never let us detach from Anchorage.”
I understand these responses, and have had these same concerns myself, but Eaglexit is bigger than all of these.
There are seven principles our government is founded on.
I do not see these principles being practiced in our current governing situation. Do you?
If we were a smaller community with direct local control, we the people would be more active in giving the government its power. We the people would have our views more readily represented in government. We the people would have more control over AD2.
We at Eaglexit continue to be a civics discussing grassroots effort by local citizens open to detaching AD2 from the Municipality of Anchorage. We want to educate the citizens of AD2 about the process of detachment, the effort needed to detach, and most importantly to give the people living in AD2 the choice for freedom and self-governance.
What a great lesson for us and a spectacular example for our children.
Lee Jordan said it best, “Will the people of Chugiak-Eagle River have the opportunity to control their own destiny, or must they forever remain subject to what has been decreed for them by Anchorage?”
The Alaska State constitution allows for our communities to grow and govern themselves. The process takes time and money, but most importantly it takes people. People with the will to stand up and exercise our right to make governing decisions for our community.
Sean Murphy and his wife Robin came to Alaska with the Army. He moved to Eagle River from Anchorage in 1999 with his family. He is a retired Anchorage School District educator and administrator. He is active with his community council. He is the new chair of Eaglexit.
Chugiak-Eagle River Assemblywoman Jamie Allard has filed a letter of intent to run for legislative office in 2022.
So has former Alaska House Rep. Sharon Jackson, also of the Eagle River area, who lost her seat to Rep. Ken McCarty in 2020.
Allard is in a House district that will not have an incumbent in it under the new redistricting plan, approved by the Alaska Redistricting Board (but not final until through inevitable court challenges). It will become District 22 under the new plan and is considered the southern part of the Eagle River area.
It’s unclear if Allard is planning to run for House, however, as she has not indicated on her filing. She may be taking a look at the Senate seat, when those Senate lines are finalized by the Redistricting Board early this week. Allard was elected to the Anchorage Assembly in 2020 and has a strong following.
Representing Eagle River in the Senate is Sen. Lora Reinbold, whose seat comes up for election in 2022.
Allard is hispanic and a first-generation Chilean-American. She came to Alaska with the military; both she and her husband are veterans.
The redistricting board moved current District 14 Rep. Kelly Merrick and District 13 Rep. McCarty into the same district.
That northern Chugiak-Eagle River district is now called District 24, and Jackson plans to challenge McCarty and Merrick for it, should they choose to run.
Jackson is a lifelong Republican and former Alaska delegate to the Republican National Convention, where she was a Trump delegate. She was an aide to U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan before being appointed to finish out the legislative term of Nancy Dahlstrom, who was chosen to become Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s commissioner of Corrections.
Jackson came to Alaska as a soldier in the U.S. Army.
The Primary Election in Alaska is now on an open ballot, with all party candidates competing for one of four slots on the General Election ballot. At the General Election, voters are invited to “rank” their preferred candidates from 1-4. The Primary and General Election system has never been tried in America before, and this will be Alaska’s first attempt at the election experiment approved by voters in 2020.
The massive $1.2 trillion spending package passed by the U.S. House of Representatives late Friday night has the infrastructure needs of the country at the center of it, along with climate change mitigation.
There are billions of dollars for roads, bridges, ports, broadband, and the power grid.
Here are some of the big ticket items:
$110 billion for roads, bridges, bridge repair and replacement, and major infrastructure projects. President Joe Biden had originally asked for $159 billion for this portion of the spending package, which had been dubbed the American Jobs Plan.
$65 billion for expanding high-speed broadband access.
$66 billon to eliminate a portion of the Amtrak maintenance backlog, modernize the Northeast Corridor, and bring “world-class service to new areas,” according to the White House.
$5 billion for replacing old, diesel-burning school buses, with $2.5 billion designated for purchasing electric school buses.
$7.5 billion to develop a national network of electric vehicle chargers.
$55 billion to replace lead water pipes.
$65 billion to upgrade the power infrastructure, including thousands of miles of new transmission lines.
$50 billion to make communities more resilient to the impacts of climate change and cyber-attacks.
$362 million over five years for transportation grants.
$3.5 billion for the U.S. Department of Energy Weatherization Assistance Program to help low-income homeowners with energy efficiency, i.e. windows, doors.
$42 billion to modernize airports, ports, waterways to support supply chains and reduce emissions, including repair and maintenance backlogs, reducing congestion and bottlenecks.
$21 billion to clean up superfund and brownfield sites, reclaim abandoned mines, and cap orphaned gas wells. Of that, Some of those old wells are on the North Slope. $150 million will be awarded to tribes or Native corporations involved in the work.
$11.6 billion for the Army Corps of Engineers for flood control projects.
$3.5 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) for flood mitigation and assistance.
$140 million for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for forecasting climate change.
$500 million for NOAA for mapping and forecasting of flooding.
$100 million of $65 billion for internet will come to Alaska.
$3.5 billion for Alaska roads.
$225 million for Alaska bridges.
$18 billion in loan guarantees for an Alaska natural gas export project that has an estimated cost of $38 billion.
$180 million for water and wastewater projects in Alaska over five years.
$130 million to help Alaska communities relocate away from eroding coasts.
$100 million for the Bureau of Indian Affairs to relocate Native communities away from eroding coastlines.
$230 million for the Alaska Native villages grant program for water and wastewater systems in rural Alaska villages.
$73 million for construction of ferries and ferry terminals and facilities, and operating costs.
$250 million for pilot electric or “low-emitting” ferry development. One grant of that amount is marked for Alaska.
“Tonight, I proudly signed the historic Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework and sent it to @POTUS to be signed into law. This bill delivers a once-in-a-century investment in our infrastructure, creates good-paying jobs and takes a crucial step to #BuildBackBetter For The People,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Twitter.
The majority of the Biden Administration climate change, social justice, and socialist safety net agenda is in a separate bill called Build Back Better Act. The infrastructure portion was separated from the BBA because of the resistance in Congress to the social engineering aspects of the bigger bill, which include socialist safety-net programs, expansions of Medicaid, universal government funded daycare and other programs. The BBA is what the Democrats will tackle next.
The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the quiet part out loud last week: Masks are here to stay. The government is now normalizing the “new normal” of a masked American society, and not just for Covid-19.
“The evidence is clear: Masks can help reduce your chance of Covid-19 infection by more than 80%,” said Dr. Rochelle Walensky in a new YouTube government promotional video. “Masks also help protect from the flu, coronavirus, or even just the common cold. In combination with other steps like getting your vaccination, hand washing, and keeping physical distance, wearing your mask is an important step you can take to keep us all healthy.”
Her video remarks were in answer to the question often posed: “Why do I need to still need to wear a mask?”
Americans in many communities have been wearing masks for over 18 months, with advice from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has been unwavering in its support for mask-wearing. That is, after the first few weeks of the pandemic, when even Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the Chief Medical Advisor to the President, said that wearing masks was not helpful.
On March 8, 2020, Fauci said, “There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And, often, there are unintended consequences — people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face.”
His remarks came during an interview on CBS’ 60 Minutes. In a 2020 memo, he wrote, “Masks are really for infected people to prevent them from spreading infection to people who are not infected rather than protecting uninfected people from acquiring infection. The typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective in keeping out virus, which is small enough to pass through material. It might, however, provide some slight benefit in keep out gross droplets if someone coughs or sneezes on you.”
Later, he said the comment required context:
“I don’t regret anything I said then because in the context of the time in which I said it, it was correct. We were told in our task force meetings that we have a serious problem with the lack of PPEs,” he said in an interview with CBS Evening News.
Alaska Chief Medical Officer Anne Zink also stated in 2020 that masks are not helpful in preventing transmission of the virus.
Zink told the Senate Health and Social Services Committee on Feb. 12, 2020 that a person wearing a mask is breathing in a wet, moist environment collecting viruses and bacteria, and it is in general not useful for protection from other persons’ germs.
In 2021, the science has changed. Dr. Walensky says it can reduce your chance of catching Covid by more than 80 percent.
California and Florida are two examples of states taking different approaches on masking. In early October, Covid transmission was flat in California.
Gov. Gavin Newsom bragged on Twitter that “California continues to lead the nation with the lowest COVID case rate and as the only state in the CDC’s ‘moderate transmission’ category.”
The mask-mandated Golden State is now back in the red “high” territory of transmission. California has had a total of 4.96 million cases since the beginning of the pandemic, and 72,671 deaths attributed to Covid.
Meanwhile, Florida, which has Gov. Ron DeSantis taking a no-mask-mandate approach, sees cases dropping. In fact, California’s rate of transmission is now double that of Florida, Texas, and the rest of the Gulf Coast states.
Florida has reported 3.66 million cases of Covid and 60,334 deaths attributed to the virus. While California’s population (39 million) is greater than that of Florida (27 million), the average Floridian trends much older and therefore more vulnerable to the ravages of Covid. California’s population that is over the age of 65 is 14.3 percent, while Florida’ 65+ population is 20.5 percent.
DeSantis told Fox interviewer Laura Ingram last week that the media has suddenly lost interest in Florida’s Covid situation: “I guess Florida is no longer part of the United States. They just pretend like we don’t exist …Now that we’re in a situation we have very low numbers, you don’t hear a peep.”
Read: Fox Interview with DeSantis at this link.
But the push toward universal masking is now moving into a new realm. Public universities are teaching professionals how to normalize mask wearing by using social pressure, celebrity influencers, authority figures, and others. The Behavior Change for Good Initiative at the Wharton School and the School of Arts and Sciences of the University of Pennsylvania published a flyer with helpful suggestions such as:
The Wharton School / UPenn flyer has many other tips for professionals to use to change public behavior for good … or for “good”:
With the House district maps all but set for the Mat-Su Valley, there is an open seat, and Mat-Su Borough Assemblyman Jesse Sumner and Stephen Wright have already filed letters of intent to run. Both are Republicans.
When Wasilla Republicans Rep. David Eastman and Rep. Christopher Kurka were put into the same district, it put Eastman’s old district — 10 — renumbered to become District 26, without an incumbent lawmaker.
Wright said he moved back to Banner Way in January of 2021 and had previously lived in Meadow Lakes for three years. Wright has run for office since 2016, when he ran for Congress against Congressman Don Young. He ran for lieutenant governor in 2018, and State Senate in 2020 against Sen. David Wilson.
Sumner ran for office for the first time when he challenged Rep. David Eastman in the 2020 primary for District 10. He got 1,420 votes, while Eastman won reelection with 1,589. He has not indicated which seat he will run for — House or Senate.
The House District 26 seat was created through redistricting, a process that takes place every 10 years after the U.S. Census.
