The smart thing to do is for Gov. Mike Dunleavy to issue a statewide mask mandate.

It would send a strong signal to Alaskans about the immediate danger of the rapidly advancing COVID-19 outbreak. It would be a pro-business move, as it would help build confidence among Alaskans that some basic safety steps are being taken. It’s about protecting public health.

But Dunleavy plays to the “We don’t need no stinking masks” element of his constituency.

In doing so, he is blowing off the recommendations of the White House, which produced this report, saying the state should “mandate wearing of face masks in all indoor settings outside the home,” especially in seafood processing centers and Anchorage, Fairbanks, Kenai, Mat-Su, Valdez, Cordova and the Yukon-Koyukuk region.

Dunleavy wants to rely on individual Alaskans to decide if they want to wear a mask or not.

Keeping it optional sends a strong signal to Alaskans that it’s really not that important and that the danger of going maskless in crowded conditions is low. Dunleavy says he wants everyone to wear a mask, as long as they want to.

Individual choice is a fine thing, but it doesn’t always work. If we wanted to give drivers more freedom, we could make stopping at red lights voluntary, giving everyone a choice. And we could make paying taxes an option for those who feel so inclined.

Dunleavy’s main claim is that “hundreds of communities have never seen the virus,” so a statewide mandate “doesn’t make sense.” If communities want to institute a mask mandate, that’s up to them.

This is Dunleavy’s patented political distancing in action.

“You do a statewide mask mandate and you get a call from small Community X saying, ‘We don’t have a police force and our people aren’t wearing masks. And by the way we’ve never had a case. Why are we wearing a mask?”

Small community X is never going to make that call. He recently cited Hyder in Southeast Alaska as an example of small community X.

"We have no indication there’s been any outbreak in Hyder,” Dunleavy said at his July 22 COVID-19 show. “To issue a statewide mandate for the folks in Hyder, for everyone across the state, it doesn’t make, it doesn’t make sense from a medical perspective.”

Hyder, with fewer than 100 residents, does not have a local government, so it couldn’t enact a mask mandate if it wanted one.

But the state could adopt a statewide mask mandate that included exceptions for places like Hyder, overcoming all of the imaginary obstacles Dunleavy claims as insurmountable.

The easiest thing to do is to adopt a statewide mandate and allow local communities—including those like Hyder with no local government—to opt out of it if they desire to do so. This isn’t hard.

This approach would also be less wasteful, as many communities don’t have health powers and while Attorney General Kevin Clarkson may claim that they can enact local mandates if they desire to do so, Alaska towns can do away with the bureaucratic guessing game if the governor enacted a sensible policy.

A statewide mask mandate is one way to get the word out that the current approach to the COVID-19 pandemic is not working.

The serious lag time between someone getting infected with COVID-19 and suffering serious symptoms is such that the current rising daily numbers are simply a precursor for much bigger problems in August and September.

The health care capacity of Alaska is limited and can easily be overwhelmed. A state mandate with logical exceptions makes perfect sense.

Your contributions help support independent analysis and political commentary by Alaska reporter and author Dermot Cole. Thank you for reading and for your support. Either click here to use PayPal or send checks to: Dermot Cole, Box 10673, Fairbanks, AK 99710-0673.

Comments? Write to me at dermotmcole@gmail.com