Dunleavy continues to send mixed messages on vaccines, endangering Alaskans

For months, Gov. Mike Dunleavy has been sending mixed messages to Alaskans about the COVID-19 vaccines.

He supports the idea of people getting vaccinated, he says, but he always follows that up by saying, “It’s your choice.”

As I wrote here in April, on this issue, as with so many others, he refuses to confront the problem head on.

He won’t say that Alaskans who refuse to get vaccinated are the major problem causing the spike in hospitalizations and deaths, putting themselves, their families, their communities and the entire state at risk.

Telling the truth carries a political risk and Dunleavy is allergic to political risk.

On Thursday, the Anchorage Daily News falsely claimed that the latest prepared statement from Dunleavy reflected a new tone from the governor and that his message “was more urgent than previous statements.”

True, it was not like his laughable safety tips in late July: “Please, drive safely on the roads. Put on those goggles when using the saw or drill. Wear a life vest if going out on the water. Make sure your campfires are extinguished. Consider getting the vaccine for COVID-19, like I did. It's available and free.”

This week, the Daily News said, the governor “urged” Alaskans to get vaccinated.

The Associated Press said the same thing: “Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy has urged residents to get vaccinated, amid a spike in COVID-19 cases driven by the delta variant.”

Except he didn’t. The Daily News and the AP found something in the governor’s mealy-mouthed press release that wasn’t there—leadership. He is still dancing around the subject with language that says those who refuse to be vaccinated can still feel good about themselves.

Here is the prepared statement created by his handlers in which Dunleavy did not urge Alaskans to get vaccinated, but "encouraged” them to do so, which is a milder statement.

Alaska reporters and headline writers should retire the verb “urge” regarding Dunleavy and COVID vaccines until he does more than suggest. In April, the Juneau Empire said “Dunleavy urges Alaskans to vaccinate.” But he didn’t. He suggested it.

Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson said that Republican governors, for the most part, are not telling voters that all of us have a personal responsibility to get the vaccine or use masks.

Instead, the GOP governors are presenting this as a matter of personal freedom. Dunleavy is still following that pattern, which the news coverage has failed to make clear.

Note this quote in his new press release, which the Daily News and the AP ignored, having decided that Dunleavy’s alleged new urgent tone was the story.

“Deciding to take the vaccine is a personal choice, and one the State of Alaska should and will respect,” said Dunleavy. “There’s a lot of misinformation in the public, generated by the media and others. My request to Alaskans is to talk to their personal medical provider, and make the best choice for them and their families. I trust Alaskans to take threats to their health seriously but also rationally. That faith in Alaskans is what got us through all the prior waves of this pandemic, and it will be what ultimately defeats this virus.”

As Robinson points out, this cut-and-paste babble about “personal choice” is not true.

“Those who make the ‘personal choice’ not to be vaccinated or not to mask up in appropriate settings are also making a choice to put others at risk. They can spread the coronavirus not just to other unvaccinated individuals, but also to those who can’t get vaccinated; those for whom the vaccines are less effective; and vaccinated people who might themselves not get seriously ill but could potentially pass the virus to more vulnerable members of their households,” the columnist said.

Dunleavy’s choice is to hide behind weasel words generated by his staff, unwilling to plead with those who have ingested the anti-vaccine propaganda.

Missing from the news coverage entirely was the bit of news in the press release in which the governor’s office claimed Dunleavy “made the decision to be vaccinated in June.”

Dunleavy had released statements for months saying that he was going to get the vaccine.

“I’m getting the vaccine, not because I’m afraid, but because I want to help Alaska get back to normal,” he said in an ad posted April 2.

On July 14, the Associated Press ran a story about Dunleavy in which his administration refused to say when he had gotten the shots, but that he had been vaccinated.

He waited until the summer to get the shots and kept the delay a secret.

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