Dunleavy still refuses to confront the pandemic of the unvaccinated
The Anchorage Daily News has again misrepresented what Gov. Mike Dunleavy is saying about vaccinations, declining to accurately describe his timidity on the topic.
Regurgitating quotes without analysis or any attempt to check the facts is not reporting.
The newspaper and most other Alaska news organizations have failed to emphasize what is missing from Dunleavy’s timid comments—that nearly everyone hospitalized in Alaska with COVID or dying from COVID is not vaccinated and that the surest way to stay out of the hospital is to get vaccinated. He isn’t pleading with Alaskans to get vaccinated.
He isn’t connecting the spike in hospitalizations and deaths to the large number of Alaskans who have refused to get vaccinated. He isn’t saying that the single most important thing to do is to get vaccinated and the second more important thing to do is wear a mask.
At a press event Thursday, he urged Alaskans to talk to their medical providers about vaccination, which is not the same thing as urging Alaskans to get vaccinated.
Since the first COVID shots began in Alaska, Dunleavy has refused to urge Alaskans to get vaccinated, though the Daily News, the Associated Press and other organizations have claimed otherwise.
On Aug. 5, the Daily News imagined a new tone from the governor, one that is “more urgent than previous statements” from Dunleavy about vaccinations. This was complete fiction.
Nothing about the Dunleavy quotes in this statement suggests the urgency imagined by the Daily News and the AP. His message has been consistent, “Get vaccinated. If you want to.”
“My request to Alaskans is to talk to their personal medical provider, and make the best choice for them and their families,” Dunleavy had himself quoted as saying in an Aug. 4 press release, but the newspaper skipped that line, which contradicted its “new sense of urgency” theme.
The latest Daily News story is headlined, “Dunleavy warns Alaskans they may not get the hospital care they expect as COVID-19 surge continues.” As it did on Aug. 5, the newspaper inflated his response and the tenor of his timid comments to misrepresent the situation.
“You want to be very careful in your activities here at least for the next month or so,” Dunleavy said.
“If you’ve contemplated getting the vaccine, as you know the FDA just approved the Pfizer version of the vaccine yesterday, you may want to think about getting that vaccine now,” he said.
“I want Alaskans to also know that there’s no plans of mandates, just like we did during the original COVID. We are not mandating masks and we’re certainly not gonna mandate vaccines,” Dunleavy said. “But again, you just need to be prepared for long waits at the hospital or in some cases being turned away. And again, if you’re interested in the vaccine, the vaccine is readily available.”
“If you’ve contemplated getting the vaccine.”
“If you’re interested in the vaccine.”
These are not the words of a governor confronting the crisis. These are not the words of a governor with a new tone of urgency. These are not the words of a governor who understands that this has become a pandemic of the unvaccinated.
Dunleavy, running for re-election, speaks in code words and won’t challenge his anti-vaccine supporters, aided in this dodge by Alaska news organizations that can’t bring themselves to report on it.
The newspaper is also given to claiming that “many” of the hospitalized are not vaccinated. It would be more accurate to say that nearly all of the hospitalized are unvaccinated.
The Daily News has yet to contrast Dunleavy’s timidity with the words of leaders in health care, such as Dr. Tom Quimby, about the need to get people vaccinated.
“We have been seeing extremely ill patients with COVID. They are all unvaccinated, the ones that I’ve seen,” Quimby said in a presentation reported by Alaska Public Media.
“I‘’ve been putting breathing tubes in patients almost every shift. Our ICU has a capacity of 16 beds. The only reason we haven’t filled it up is because people have been dying and opening beds up. And I wish I had something different to tell you.,” Quimby said.
“In our ER group, where we’re living in this daily, putting breathing tubes into people who are incredibly sick, not a single ER doctor in our entire group, ever, has contracted COVID, thanks to the use of masks. We also know now — and I don’t want to belabor this — the vaccines are incredibly effective. By the day, they are showing to be safe, and they continue to be effective.”
“And I would implore people — I know people don’t (want), and I don’t want, to be forced or mandated to do things. But choose to make a personal choice, for your children, for your family, for your teachers in your community, to please consider wearing a mask and vaccinate, vaccinate your children and your family. And I hope — I know so many people have made their mind up about this. But I just want to share with you what I’m seeing here in our community. And I hope that this can help maybe persuade a person here or there at this point. So, thank you for your time.”
In a presentation on COVID Aug. 12, Dr. Shane Crotty at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology, repeated what he had said a month earlier: “At this point you are either vaccinated or you are going to catch Delta. And whether you are a young adult or old, when you catch Delta unvaccinated, you will have the highest chance of being hospitalized compared to almost any disease you have caught in your life.”
Former Anchorage Rep. Les Gara, a Democrat running for governor, is correct in saying that Dunleavy is doing nothing to get people vaccinated, but he should be promoting the shots with credible people across the state.
Gara said that all Dunleavy has done is to send out videos saying, “Hey, think about getting vaccinated. You don't have to.’”
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