At his latest state-managed publicity event, Gov. Mike Dunleavy said the state is working on contingency plans with school districts regarding the coming school year.

“We do believe that students need to be educated. And it’s our hope that we can get all of our kids back to school. And the great news as we mentioned about this virus is the research seems to indicate consistently day after day, that kids are not really impacted the way adults are and those with underlying health conditions. So that’s very good news and that bodes well for the possibility of opening school and educating kids in the manner we have in the past,” he said.

In a followup on that topic, veteran reporter Jill Burke of KTUU asked about some of the complexities that have to be faced.

“We’ve heard it stated that there’s some confidence that children are fairly resistant to the virus, at least in terms of acquiring symptoms or developing symptoms,” Burke said. “But is this the same thing as saying they are not infected and just asymptomatic? And how much confidence do you have that the children will be uninfected and not contagious? Because there are adults in the schools obviously and then those children go home to adult caregivers who may have all of the risk factors that we’ve heard you state over and over again we’re so concerned about.”

Those are real questions that deserve a thoughtful discussion.

Dunleavy chose to not answer her questions or engage in a thoughtful discussion, but delivered this five-minute soliloquy.

That’s a great , that’s a great question. You’ve hit upon a number of different issues that are slightly different. What we’re seeing and what we’re hearing is that children are not showing the symptoms. Children are not being hospitalized at anywhere near the rates adults are. As a matter of fact some have said that children are, when they are impacted or infected with this virus, they are going to the hospitals less than they did with the flu. We’re learning more and more about this every day.

And so we’re not saying they’re not getting infected. We’re not saying they’re aren’t carriers. But what we’re hearing and reading is that they seem to be impacted less, meaning the disease seems to manifest itself in an asymptomatic fashion for most children. And we’re not even sure if they are real spreaders like adults are of this virus. There’s different reports coming in that that may be the case as well that they don’t spread the disease as much as adults do.

And so we’re learning more every day. We can’t say definitely what it’s going to be like here in two weeks because every day that goes by there’s some new piece of information, as you know, that either contradicts something that was said a week ago or builds upon something that was said a week ago.

What we do know is this—that the kids are gonna have to be educated. There’e all kinds of issues manifested when we make a decision over here (motioning with his hands) in this pandemic. Again, it’s like squeezing that long balloon. Oftentimes down the road here we see the consequences of our actions over here, (motioning with his hands.)

And I think there’s no doubt that just about everyone believes that children will have to be educated. The question is what twists and turns will this disease take in the next couple weeks, next month or two. And that’s why we mentioned earlier that we’re going to have a number of contingencies to ensure that kids can get educated. At the very least, distance delivery, which is not ideal for a number of students, a number of children.

But nonetheless we want to get kids back into the classrooms, we want to get staff back into the classrooms. You may see differences in travel, most likely, where we don’t have to travel. So that we don’t mix, our students don’t mix with other students in other towns, in other cities. So again, we’re coming up with what we think is the best plan we can.

And again, (Education) Commissioner (Michael) Johnson is working with our school districts, school boards, superintendents, teachers and others. He’s also in contact with other chief, chief school officials across the country.

And so again, we’re gonna come up with the best plans we can that are gonna work for Alaskans. This pandemic makes everything, it’s unable to do anything really perfectly because we’re learning about this virus constantly. And it seems to be evolving.

There are some constants. We know it’s highly contagious. We know it impacts children much less than adults. We know that there’s a certain group of folks with health issues and age issues that it really impacts.

We know that, as the doc (Dr. Anne Zink) said, we know that it’s really a respiratory disease. We weren’t sure early on of how much touching a surface and how long the virus could last, etc. We’re pretty sure now that the vast majority of spreading this virus comes when you’re in close contact with another human being. That’s how this virus lives, that’s how this virus reproduces. And if we keep that in mind that it’s close proximity, then we can distance ourselves as much as possible, then we reduce the exposure and the chances of infections, being infected or infecting others.

That’s why you’re seeing a change over the last few weeks on face masks. And it’s not that we’re talking about N95s, which filter out the virus itself, but just a barrier to reduce the distance by which your respiratory system can project the virus.

You know when we were kids, as I mentioned I think at the previous press conference, our parents taught us to cover our face, our mouth when we coughed or sneezed. There was a reason for that. It wasn’t because it was gonna totally eliminate whatever virus or germ was causing the cough or sneeze. You were trying to deflect it away from the person that may be near you or in front of you. That’s why you cough in our elbow, cover our face, that sort of thing.

So I know that early on you had officials in Washington and other places saying that masks don’t matter, don’t wear a mask. It is pretty obvious that that research, that train of thought has changed over times.

And so, again, it’s distance. We’re gonna work, we’re gonna work with our schools as we have been and our school, school districts. We’re gonna use the best science we can. But we’ve got to educate children. We’re not gonna put them in a situation in which their lives are in danger. And as I said earlier, thank God this virus does not appear to impact children anywhere near it does adults and those with health issues.”

“So we’re at the end of the press conference.”

Left unsaid in the torrent of words was whether state officials and school district officials have reason to believe that children, teachers, other staff members can be safe in schools and whether families will be safe when kids come home from school.

These are not easy issues. They deserve real discussion with Alaskans. Not mindless lecturing at state-controlled talkathons.