{"id":62117,"date":"2020-07-22T15:31:00","date_gmt":"2020-07-22T23:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/governor-urges-alaskans-to-wear-masks\/"},"modified":"2020-07-22T15:31:00","modified_gmt":"2020-07-22T23:31:00","slug":"governor-urges-alaskans-to-wear-masks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/governor-urges-alaskans-to-wear-masks\/","title":{"rendered":"Governor urges Alaskans to wear masks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Gov. Mike Dunleavy strongly urged Alaskans to wear masks or cloth face coverings when in public, with or without a mandate.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a tool in place of social distancing,&rdquo; Dunleavy said of mask-wearing. &ldquo;My goal is not to get folks afraid. We&rsquo;re going to get through this, but this is going to be a major inconvenience. We&rsquo;re not talking about a mandate, we&rsquo;re asking folks, especially younger folks, put up your guard.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>The state is seeing a spike in cases, and Dunleavy brought representatives from Alaska&rsquo;s medical and business community to make strong requests for the public to wear masks when entering local businesses.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"ls_embed_1595470196\" src=\"https:\/\/livestream.com\/accounts\/11909061\/events\/9226987\/player?width=560&#038;height=315&#038;enableInfoAndActivity=true&#038;defaultDrawer=&#038;autoPlay=true&#038;mute=false\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen> <\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Dunleavy asked Alaskans to be vigilant about wearing masks at the news conference Wednesday alongside Department of Health and Social Services Commissioner Adam Crum; Chief of Epidemiology Dr. Joe McLaughlin; Chief Medical Officer Dr. Anne Zink; Anna Frick, DHSS research analyst; Kim Spink, DHSS nurse consultant; Sarah Oates, CEO\/president of the Alaska Cabaret, Hotel, Restaurant and Retailers Association; Silvia Villamides, executive director, Alaska Hospitality Retailers; and Kati Capozzi, president\/CEO, Alaska Chamber of Commerce, each of whom asked that masks be worn in public places.<\/p>\n<p><ins>[<a href=\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/94-new-cases-confirmed-in-alaska\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">94 new cases confirmed in Alaska<\/a>]<\/ins><\/p>\n<p>People who come within six feet of another person should wear masks or take other health care precautions even while outside, McLaughlin said.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Even if you&rsquo;re going to be outdoors, it&rsquo;s a good idea to have a face covering,&rdquo; McLaughlin said. &ldquo;Think of that 6-foot rule. It&rsquo;s a good idea to have a mask or a face covering.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Juneau Monday enacted a mask mandate, but that only applies indoors.<\/p>\n<p>The recent spike in cases could partly be attributed to social gatherings where health precautions weren&rsquo;t followed, Dunleavy said, and he asked Alaskans to social distance and wear masks when interacting with people from other households.<\/p>\n<p>While the governor emphasized his requests were not a mandate, he did announce a requirement that masks be worn at all state buildings in areas where social distancing is not possible.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;If the cases are growing we want to do our part,&rdquo; Dunleavy said. &ldquo;A lot of us have let our guard down, gotten a little too close, a little too often.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8226; Contact reporter Peter Segall at psegall@juneauempire.com. Follow him on Twitter at @SegallJnoEmpire.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&ldquo;Arrest this surge.&rdquo; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":531,"featured_media":62118,"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":[703,230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-62117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-news","tag-coronavirus","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62117","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\/531"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62117"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=62117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}