The Left is turning up the pressure for a statewide mask mandate in Alaska.

Rep. Tiffany Zulkosky, who chairs the House Health and Social Services Committee, wrote this week that Gov. Mike Dunleavy should enact a universal mask mandate, and not leave it up to local communities. It’s been an ongoing theme with the Bethel Democrat, who recently wrote again on the topic, stating that simply asking Alaskans to do the right thing is not enough.

Alaskans won’t wear masks voluntarily, was the message. There have to be legal consequences if they don’t.

“It has become abundantly clear that simply asking people to do something, when you have the legal authority to save lives and the capacity of our medical system, is not leadership. It has not flattened the curve of COVID-19′s spread in Alaska. We need decisive action, taken now, to protect our public health and our economy. Alaskans are worth it,” she wrote in the Anchorage Daily News.

“As Alaska grapples with a record-breaking number of COVID-19 cases week after week, increasing hospitalizations that strain our state’s medical capacity and we continue to witness unnecessary loss of life, failure to enact statewide protective measures that mitigate harm to Alaskans on the promise of a future vaccine is nothing short of negligence,” Zulkosky wrote.

She also wants the governor to reinstate capacity limits in buildings and enact other economy-killing restrictions.

Dunleavy has stated that these mandates are best left to local governments, but he has recently reinstated some travel restrictions and travel testing requirements to protect villages from the import of the virus by those visiting Anchorage and Fairbanks.

Masks are mandated in Anchorage at the local level, as they are in many communities.

Since the coronavirus appeared in Alaska in March, 24,419 Alaskans have tested positive for the virus and 99 deaths have been attributed to it, a death rate of less than 1/2 of 1%. 129 Alaskans are currently hospitalized because of serious conditions caused by the virus. During the summer, the number hospitalized was below 10. Overall, 584 Alaskans have been hospitalized for treatment, sometimes because their oxygen levels had dropped or they had become dehydrated, at other times because they developed serious complications and needed a ventilator.

Zulkosky has held several hearings on COVID-19 over the past few months, and her conclusion that a statewide mandate on masks is needed has been unwavering.

If you’re going to Hawaii, you will be wearing a mask in public. Hawaii Gov. David Ige issued a statewide mask mandate Monday.

Ige’s emergency proclamation requires everyone to “wear a face covering over their nose and mouth in public,” and this includes if driving in a car with people who are not immediate members of one’s household.

Children under the age of 5 and those with certain medical conditions are exempted.

Also exempt are for those outdoors when physical distance of six (6) feet from other individuals (who are not members of the same household/living unit/residence) can be maintained at all times. Theoretically, this means it you’re on an uncrowded beach or around a pool and there’s six feet between you and others, you’ll be in good shape without the mask.

Before this statewide order, it had been left to the counties, which are the islands.

Visitors to Hawaii also must test negative within 72 hours of traveling to the islands. If you don’t test, you must go into a 14-day quarantine that has very strict boundaries, according to the Alaska Airlines Blog:

• No leaving your designated self-quarantine location for any reason—except for medical emergencies or to seek medical care.
• Food must be delivered at your own expense, so no sit down dinners at local spots or trips to the grocery store.
• Vacation rentals are not permitted as a quarantine location.
• Failure to follow this order is a misdemeanor and punishable by a maximum fine of $5,000 and/or 1-year imprisonment.

“We all agreed it’s important to have a single message and consistent exceptions,” Gov. Ige said of his new mask mandate, which has no end date.

Hawaii has had 16,734 confirmed diagnoses of COVID-19, and 223 deaths.

To compare, Alaska has had 24,419 confirmed cases of the China virus and has had 99 deaths associated with the illness.

Alaska has no statewide mask mandate, but many liberal lawmakers are pressing Gov. Mike Dunleavy to order one under his current emergency powers, which expire Dec. 15.

Anchorage Acting Mayor Austin Quinn-Davidson may have backtracked on her decision to close down restaurants on Monday. But it’s now unclear. Must Read Alaska has learned she has scrubbed her announcement, which was scheduled for Thursday.

In a text shared with Must Read Alaska, the mayor has decided to wait until she hears more from the local hospitals about whether shutting down restaurants.

“We’re going to pause on the new EO [Emergency Order] until next week or so. Hospitals want a few more days with the data before we move. It’s still bad, but they want to make the call after Friday. Nobody wants to shut down, so we’re making sure the data is solid,” according to the text, which was sourced to an unnamed city employee.

Earlier, another memo circulated among leaders in the restaurant and bar industry, which detailed a meeting several had had with the mayor, in which she told them that on Thursday she was announcing the closure of Anchorage restaurants and bars on Monday.

Now, it appears the mayor is taking her directions from local hospital administrators about the capacity of the hospitals.

COVID-19 has been on the march through Anchorage this fall, with positive tests on the increase every day for the past two weeks.

But on Wednesday, only 12 positive cases were reported in Anchorage. Over the course of the pandemic, 13,292 cases have been diagnosed positive in Anchorage, with 61 deaths, a death rate of less than 1/2 percent.

Several sources of Must Read Alaska have learned that Acting Mayor Austin Quinn-Davidson met with representatives of the food and beverage industry, and told them she’ll shutting down restaurants for 28 days starting Monday morning for indoor dining.

Must Read Alaska has learned the acting mayor will still allow take out, and that outdoor seating will be allowed. The temperature in Anchorage today was about 10 degrees above zero.

This will be the next in a series of shutdowns that this mayor and the previous one, Ethan Berkowitz, have enacted against the restaurant and bars of Anchorage.

In July, former Mayor Berkowitz shut down restaurants and bars to indoor service. His order also closed theaters, bingo halls, and limited indoor gatherings to 15 people, and outdoor gatherings with food and drinks to 25 people.

That started a brief skirmish with a few restaurants that refused to comply, which ended up on the national news.

Earlier this month, Quinn-Davidson enacted a mask mandate in Anchorage and also limited indoor and outdoor gatherings. She also advertised to hire more code enforcers to troll through businesses and ensure people are masked up and keeping six feet away from others.

Several restaurants in Anchorage have simply gone out of business as a result of the multiple orders, as they are unable to pay rent or keep their staff.

NOTORIOUS IN FAIRBANKS, MANLEY HOT SPRINGS

A man who was known to Fairbanks as a dangerous sex offender has been arrested in Bannock County, Idaho.

Pirate, who years ago changed his name from Daniel Selovich, has been arrested for allegedly assaulting a woman, burning her with a cigarette, and gagging her with his foot.

The incident unfolded on Nov. 9, when Bannock County Sheriff’s Office checked on a woman in Downey, Idaho, who had been allegedly assaulted.

According to Idaho reports, officers say the victim met Pirate on a dating app, and agreed to let him spend the night with her. During the night, the heavily tattooed man allegedly burned her with a cigarette and left large scratches on her back. He is now charged with felony aggravated battery.

At first the woman didn’t want to press charges, but later she changed her mind. During her account with investigators she said Pirate had come to her home on Nov. 7, and when they went to her bedroom he bit her on the lip and neck so hard that she cried.

“Pirate held her (mouth open) so that he could ash his cigarette into her mouth,” according to the probable cause. “(The victim) said that he took pictures as she held the ash in her mouth,” the report said.

Pirate showed up in Fairbanks in December of 2019, causing alarm, as he had once been accused of the kidnapping and savage sexual assault of a woman he took to his cabin in Manley Hot Springs in 2015. That woman later died of unrelated causes and so the State dropped the charges, since there was no victim.

But meanwhile, Pirate had been extradited to Nevada in 2016 after the Alaska case against him was dropped.

At the time, Nevada authorities had connected Pirate via DNA to a Las Vegas rape some 12 years earlier. Selovich had also been convicted of rape in California in 2004.

After leaving Fairbanks, Pirate was spotted in Redding, California, one of his haunts, where the community became up in arms, and where police warned people to leave him alone and not harass him.