Let’s think about the coalition who seek new leadership and an end to the Mayor’s/Assembly’s dictatorial powers over Anchorage. You might think it is a strong coalition and constitutes a great majority. If you think this, you would be wrong.
The anti emergency-power, anti executive-order coalition is made up of:
- Those who no longer believe the continued shutdowns are necessary to effectively combat COVID. In other words: The continued price is too much to pay for the return.
- Those who never believed shutdowns were wise or necessary to combat COVID for the small part of the population who are at risk for the disease. In other words: Other than briefly, the price (in liberty and economics) was always too high to pay.
These folks think and believe differently about government power, about this pandemic, and each have a dramatically different hope about Dave Bronson’s approach to COVID. Dunbar knows these groups are distrustful of each other, and could break apart when skilled pressure is applied; unless Dave Bronson is able to make the following assurances.
5 essential promises regarding COVID:
We will never run out of beds or ICU spaces
Do you remember why emergency powers were needed by the Mayor and the Assembly? Because we would run out of ventilators and ICU beds. One of the least known facts about Anchorage’s response is that we never did run out of either, and were never in danger of running out of beds. We can, and did, dedicate facilities for overflow beds and ICU space as needed. There is no reason to ‘Flatten the Curve’. Remember that flatten the curve wasn’t meant to reduce the number of people who got sick, just make sure there were beds for anyone who needed one.
Promise: Under a Bronson Mayorship, we will smartly use emergency expansion facilities and spaces in Anchorage to make sure we never run out of hospital beds. The pandemic is over, and so are the municipal executive orders.
Life in Anchorage will return to ‘normal’
For most folks, the risk of COVID is known. The risk you carry is determined almost exclusively by co-morbidities (extreme obesity, diabetes, heart disease). Keeping someone at low risk (let’s call ‘high risk’ being above the danger from a bad flu season) from working or living normally does not protect you if you are in a high-risk group. ⅓ of all excess covid deaths were from economic and societal harm from our response (https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6942e2.htm). Economically harming the country by forcing folks into poverty from job-loss, or depression from loneliness, makes things worse. If you are at high risk, then protecting yourself by getting a vaccine, staying at home and away from crowds, or only visiting careful businesses is your best approach to avoiding getting COVID, and everyone else should live as normally as they can.
Promise: Under a Bronson Mayorship, the response to COVID that individual people and businesses take will not be mandated through executive orders.
‘Normal’ will still help protect those at high risk
Americans should take their COVID response seriously because there are some who are very vulnerable to it. ‘Normal’ life needs to take into consideration that some may want special consideration and protection.
Promise: Returning to ‘normal’ will not prevent you from personally taking a more cautious approach to COVID.
Businesses and individuals will largely decide their response to Covid
Government can act if risks are extremely high, and if the options for mitigation of a threat like COVID are unknown. The need for caution comes from our understanding that a pandemic is a threat to society as a whole. In a pandemic every person can expect to see wildly elevated effects of the disease. We now know, and have known for a long time about COVID. There are some outlying cases, but COVID is a minute threat to large parts of the population. (https://www.heritage.org/data-visualizations/public-health/covid-19-deaths-by-age/). We should also recognize that COVID is exceedingly dangerous to some. If you have an at-risk person in your family, or the customers you serve are at risk for COVID, then extraordinary measures are certainly called for and encouraged. But that approach should be based on the actual risks related to COVID, and not fear. Schools should open, folks at low risk should resume ‘normal’ life.
Promise: Businesses and families will determine their response to Covid, not the Anchorage Assembly or the Mayor.
If a true Pandemic situation returns, extraordinary measures can never be completely off the table
The goal of a Bronson Mayorship will be to distribute accurate information, giving each person the ability to make the right decision for themselves and for their customers. While the pandemic here in Anchorage is now over (by all definitions of ‘Pandemic’), we can never say that more dangerous strains can’t create risk for new populations or entirely new risk profiles. If there is a great enough systemic risk, and weighing that risk against the massive damage to our economy and liberty from severe measures is justified, then the municipality will act. Just know that any actions taken in a Bronson Administration will consider
- Your responsibility to make your own decisions about how you want to live your own life
- The terrible negative effects of harming local businesses from shutdowns
- The ⅓ of all excess COVID deaths that were caused by the lockdowns
- The understanding that, even in the face of pandemics, liberty must be supported and given to future generations.
Promise: A Bronson Administration reaction to future threats from COVID will carefully weight the negative effects of shutdowns on economics, life and liberty. If they are ever used, they are truly a limited, short-term and last resort.
Glen is an Alaskan born, Anchorage-based political consultant and strategist. He has run for office, started a charter school, written speeches, served as a Republican District Chair, and serves in many active political, civil, and charitable organizations.
