Despite the rise in cases and calls from the medical community for the state to enact health mandates, Gov. Mike Dunleavy said he is not willing to take “universal approaches” to managing the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n
“That initial modeling we were presented showed a lot of deaths,” Dunleavy said, referring to early predictions about the virus. “Those predictions resulted in actions in Alaska to flatten the curve. Those actions came at a price. They came at a price for our economies.”<\/p>\n
But now that the coronavirus has not been as lethal as predicted, he said, a more surgical approach is needed. The state reported a record number of cases over the weekend, and the number of hospitalizations and deaths rose slightly.<\/p>\n
Despite that, Alaska is still doing a pretty good job, Dunleavy said and the state’s overall hospitalization and death rate is much lower than other states.<\/p>\n
He also reiterated the importance of wearing a mask when distancing is difficult and said he would support local mask mandates, such as the one recently passed in Juneau.<\/p>\n