Welcome to the latest belated edition of Friday in the Sun, our weekly column attempting to catch up and break down the news of the week. As always, take everything with a grain of salt because acting like you know what you’re talking about is 90% of Alaska politics (ignoring and/or belittling the folks that do know what they’re talking about is the other 10%).
Also, hey, if you’re a subscriber to the The Midnight Sun Memo (and, if not, why?!? It’s so easy to sign up!) you may have noticed the increasing overlap between this column and the newsletter. Here’s a handy way to jump past the reheated newsletter to the new and/or fleshed out stuff for anyone who’s already done the reading: Too long; already read.
Playing the od
“Low-risk does not mean no risk,” said Alaska Chief Medical Officer Dr. Anne Zink during a news conference today when referring to the younger low-risk Alaskans who are getting sick and dying in Alaska’s hospitals.
I wanted to highlight that quote because it gets to an important underlying issue with the state of the pandemic and the smug refusal of our state’s leaders to take meaningful action to curb the spread of the virus. One of the frequent lines we hear in response to the ongoing calls for mask mandates or to at least do something more than asking Alaskans to “strongly consider maybe thinking about consulting their doctor to see if the vaccine is right for them” is that neither masks nor vaccines will wipe out the virus. It’s a line that seems to be particularly favored by Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson and his cronies, who fall back to this I’m-smarter-than-you attitude of “Well actually, we can’t eradicate the virus so checkmate, LIBERALS.” It seems to go along with this frankly bizarre narrative that people want to wear masks and want to limit large gatherings just for the sake of infringing on individual liberties and killing the economy, ignoring the reality that we’re all damned tired and would like nothing more to go back to normal… just not at the expense of the largely avoidable pain and suffering of our fellow Alaskans.
It’s a grim bit of fatalism and political opportunism that overlooks the simple fact that these measures have never been about the complete elimination of the virus—a possibility that long went out the window given the churn of mutations from the virus’ unchecked spread—but about reducing the risk that you’ll get the virus, reducing the risk that if you do that it will be severe and reducing the risk that if it is severe that you’ll die from it. That is something that is clearly borne out in the state’s experience as hospitals inundated by unvaccinated people.
The state’s own statistics lag on this front (more on that later), but the ballpark figure is that the unvaccinated make up about 85% to 90% of the new cases and hospitalizations. Yes, there are vaccinated people who are contracting the virus and landing in the hospital but they are almost universally in those high-risk groups (the average age of hospitalized people who are vaccinated is 66, according to Zink). And it’s not just that the unvaccinated account for the vast majority of covid-related hospitalizations but they’re also younger with an average age of 44 (which also means they end up clinging to life longer, requiring more resources before they recover or succumb to the virus).
“We see severe cases in every age group and the vast majority of patients we see in the emergency department often say ‘I didn’t think I would be the person who would be at risk,'” she said. “It’s fantastic that many people are asymptomatic. It’s great that many people recover quickly, but you are much safer to not require hospitalization and death if you are vaccinated for everyone 12 and above.”
When talking about chances, she also gave a big picture look at what to expect with every 1,000 news cases of covid-19.
“If we have 1,000 people test positive, just based on general numbers we would expect 260 of them to be children, 23 of them to be hospitalized, five of them to die and every other day we would expect one child to be hospitalized,” she said, adding that’s not to mention people who ride out the sickness at home. It’s a figure that far outweighs any risk we’ve seen from even the alleged side effects of the vaccine.
The figure makes Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s assertion on Wednesday that “practically all Alaskans” will end up with antibodies whether it be through vaccination or infection, as if it’s a point that would justify his refusal to do anything more than meekly suggest people think about getting vaccinated, look particularly morbid. Setting aside the ongoing debate over whether vaccines or infection is more effective (vaccination is more effective according to most serious studies, especially for people who were previously infected) this once again ignores the underlying statistics.
By the current case rates, that hands-off approach means more than five Alaskans will be expected die with each day’s new round of cases. Pencil out the governor’s “everyone gonna get it anyways” approach and the additional deaths to get to this natural herd immunity would be north of 1,500.
While the folks in charge of the policy have waffled on the vaccines (more on that below), Zink and her colleagues were unequivocal that vaccines and masking are are the best tools to reduce the risk that more serious medical intervention is required. Zink also stressed that the vaccines—which have been administered to about half of the world’s population at this point—are safe.
“We have the most safe and robust process in this country in the world for looking at vaccines,” she said. “They’re probably the safest thing we do in medicine, safer than most over-the-counter medications that we use.”
Don’t play the odds. Get a vaccine.
1,793*
That’s today’s total count of new cases of covid-19, shattering the record that was set just yesterday, but it comes with a caveat. Those are cases identified over a period that could stretch back as far as three weeks, state officials said today in a news conference where they stressed that the boom in numbers are in part driven by a massive backlog at pretty much every level of the state’s health care system. Testing facilities are backed up, hospitals are backed up and the state’s data team doesn’t have enough people to keep up with it all.
The new death count of 44 total new deaths also spans back potentially months with a “vast majority” coming from August. (Also, several people in their 20s are on that list.)
It’s an incredibly frustrating place for the state to be in. Not only does it paint an unclear and incomplete picture of the current situation, but it opens the door for pretty much anyone to read into it what they want. You can look at the seemingly hapless response and wonder about all the current cases that aren’t being reported in a timely fashion (and that’s not to mention all the cases that go unnoticed because of limitations in testing). Or, and more worryingly, some might look at the numbers and say “Yeesh, it’s not nearly as bad as the numbers look.”
The one takeaway that I can say for sure about it all is that Dunleavy’s claim that “We’re on top of it. We’ve always been on top of it.” continues to age poorly.
Waffling
Frankly, my head’s still spinning from the governor’s news conference on Wednesday. There was his indignation that people would be critical of his handling of the pandemic, the winks and nods towards the anti-mask crowd, the aggressive backlash to the suggestion that the state should be more aggressive when it comes curbing the largely unchecked spread of the virus, the above mentioned touting of death numbers and herd immunity, and a heavy dose of doublespeak on the vaccines.
Each one of those could probably generate their own write-up (and certainly lay the groundwork for campaign messaging), but I just wanted to take some time to highlight the tireless work of columnist Dermot Cole in this piece that scrapes together all of Dunleavy’s vaccine waffling: Dunleavy vacillates on vaccinations as deaths, hospitalizations mount. It’s remarkable when you see it all in one place.
“We encourage folks to work at actually getting a vaccination,” he said.
“We’re going to continue to ask the people of Alaska to seriously consider getting a vaccination that’s readily available,” he said.
“We still need individual Alaskans to give some serious thought about getting a vaccine.”
“Even within the scientific and health care fields, you’ve got folks with different opinions on vaccinations, on therapies, etc.”
“There are families in which some folks want to get vaccinated, some don’t.”
Monoclonal antibodies
Yes, they’re a thing. Yes, they work as long as you get them very early in the course of your infection (pending availability). The longer you wait to have any sort of intervention on covid-19, the worse it can be. Here’s a great thread breaking down the experience:
Redistricting schedule
I’ve been meaning to dig into the latest round of maps, but the good news is that you’ll have several (somewhat limited) opportunities to check them out yourselves! Here’s the currently set roadshow dates from the Alaska Redistricting Board:
September 27, 2021: Juneau Public Hearing: 4:30pm-6:30pm: Centennial Hall http://notice.alaska.gov/203858
September 28, 2021: Haines Public Hearing: 2:30pm-4:00pm: Haines Assembly Chambers http://notice.alaska.gov/203859
September 29, 2021: Sitka Public Hearing: 3:30pm-5:30pm: Sitka Westmark Hotel http://notice.alaska.gov/203872
September 30, 2021: Valdez Public Hearing: 4:30pm-6:30pm: Valdez Convention and Civic Center http://notice.alaska.gov/203873
October 4, 2021: Anchorage Public Hearing: 4:30pm-6:30pm: Anchorage LIO http://notice.alaska.gov/203893
Digging in
In the latest Us-versus-them turn by the Bronson Administration, municipal manager Amy Demboski sent out a message to municipal employees on Friday demanding that any and all communication between them and the Anchorage Assembly or the municipal clerks MUST be funneled through her office first. It’s just the latest childish turn from an administration that has already fallen back to the tired old strategy of blaming everyone else for your own failings. I’m starting to wonder why they even want to win office when it seems like they’d rather just play the role of the obstinate and aggrieved minority (Oh, right, the suspicious contracts).
As Anchorage Assembly member Forrest Dunbar pointed out on Twitter: “Someone get former Muni Manager Mike Abbott on the phone. Did Amy go through him every time she wanted to speak to someone at APD, or the Fire Department, or Parks and Rec about a neighborhood issue in the district she represented?”
The Blue Alaskan has had their anonymous hands busy keeping up with everything going on with the Bronson administration (a relief for me). Here’s a few of their recent posts that are worth checking out:
- Bronson Administration Goes Dark, Instructs Employees to Cease Communications With Legislative Branch
- Allard: “This could be an ethics violation”
- Mayor Bronson’s adoration for monoclonal antibodies smells grifty
‘Tough’ on crime
With a pandemic that’s fast spiraling out of control and an inability to bully everyone into thinking that it’s actually fine that people are dying because more people are dying from other causes, you might see why the governor needed a little pick-me-up this week when his administration sent out a self-congratulatory news releases patting themselves on the back for the low crime rate over the course of the pandemic (a thing that was pretty much seen everywhere because of, you know, the pandemic). It’s thanks to the repeal of Senate Bill 91, Dunleavy crowed, just, uh, don’t look at the fact that sexual assault rates climbed during the same period and my administration has had not one but two high-profile resignations over sexual assault and sexual harassment.
He probably also wouldn’t want to be reminded that his 2018 election campaign included a registered “sex offender/child kidnapper” as a deputy campaign treasurer.
Yeesh.
Special Session 4
We’re technically less than a week away from the start of the fourth special session. I write “technically” because there’s a load of chatter right now about the possibility of either canceling it, delaying it or gaveling out immediately after gaveling in. There’s a lot of questions about whether there’s any purpose to returning to Juneau when:
- There’s not any apparent movement on a fiscal plan.
- That whatever work there might be on the fiscal plan will quickly give way to the interminable fight over the PFD.
- That people are tired and patience is strained.
- That no one really needs to have any more opportunities to hear Rep. David Eastman and company talk about Nazis.
- That any well-intentioned effort to address the pandemic (not currently on the agenda at this point) is going to lose out to the anti-masker and anti-vaccine crowd, because apparently those things are all driven by who sends the most emails.
- And, of course, there’s that whole pandemic thing.
A moment of bliss
In the best of times, the Legislature is a misery machine. In the worst of times, it’s, well… well… not great.
Anyways, someone reminded me of the most perfect two minutes of testimony that marked the peak of the Legislature. We should’ve known it’d all be downhill from there and gaveled the whole thing out then.
Have a nice weekend, y’all. Stay safe out there, there’s otters on the loose.
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