Flattening the curve<\/a> has been something of a rallying cry among public officials and people urging others to change their behavior to avoid spreading COVID-19. It references graphical representations showing the virus’ exponential spread and reducing the peak of such graphs.<\/p>\nWeldon said she did not support the resolution because it could not practically be enforced. She said Juneau does not have the personnel or the space to enforce a mandatory quarantine.<\/p>\n
However, supporters said the existence of the self-quarantine mandate will have a positive effect.<\/p>\n
Edwardson said he believes most people will follow the local law. He said a law on the books gives people and employers a reason to do the right thing.<\/p>\n
An amendment to the resolution that exempted critical workforce infrastructure was divisive and passed 5-4.<\/p>\n
Triem, Edwardson, Jones, Weldon and Bryson voted for it. Hughes-Skandijs, Smith, Gladziszewski and Hale voted against. Those who opposed the amendment wanted the self-quarantine mandate to apply to as many people as possible.<\/p>\n
“We are trying to make sure the people in Juneau stay alive,” Hale said. “We have flights from Seattle into Juneau every single day, and Seattle is exploding with cases.”<\/p>\n
Smith said economic crisis seems unavoidable in light of the pandemic, so it did not make sense to exempt workers.<\/p>\n
However, Bryson and others said if critical workers are needed in Juneau, the city will want them in service as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n
Throughout the meeting, Assembly members, including Triem who voted for the resolution, said the resolution strips Juneau residents of rights. Triem said the full gravity of the decision needed to be acknowledged, and she felt members were being too flippant about that.<\/p>\n
Hale said she did not think the Assembly was dismissive of the weight of the decision, and other members said exceptional action must be taken in the interest of public health.<\/p>\n
“This is truly the definition of unprecedented,” she said.<\/p>\n
• Contact reporter Ben Hohenstatt at (907)523-2243 or bhohenstatt@juneauempire.com. Follow him on Twitter at @BenHohenstatt.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It started today. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":474,"featured_media":59376,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":9,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[703,75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-59375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-news","tag-coronavirus","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/474"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59375"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=59375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}