Governor Mike Dunleavy held a press conference on Wednesday, May 6, alongside Commissioner Adam Crum of the Alaska Department of Health and Human Services. They detailed Phase Two of the Reopen Alaska Responsibly Plan.
This Friday, May 8 at 8:00 a.m., Governor Dunleavy is planning to launch the next phase of steps towards returning Alaska to a state of normalcy, despite concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic: “So on Friday at 8:00 a.m., the new guidelines will go into effect. In the days ahead, we’ll be announcing more guidelines for things like intrastate travel, capacity for childcare facilities, re-opening of organized sports and overnight camps, such as summer camps. Again, it’s going to be up to us to make this work.”
Commissioner Adam Crum offered more details on how Phase Two impacts various sectors of the economy:
- Retail, restaurants, and non-essential businesses: “So, for retail, restaurants, and non-essential, we will open these up in Phase One, and now we have an opportunity to grow these to 50% occupancy for these businesses. Walk-ins are going to be permitted, so this is a great chance to improve your dining capacity. We know of a lot of businesses who had to make the choice that at 25%, it wasn’t quite there for them – so at this point, we hope a lot of opportunities for businesses to look and say they can make this work at 50%.”
- Personal care services: “This is going to grow to 50% occupancy. It’s going to be reservation-only to make sure, with that close personal contact, we want to make sure there’s opportunity for a telephonic pre-screening of the patrons before they come in. I appreciate all of the work that the boards of barbers and hairdressers did in giving us a lot of guidance in the industry perspective as we put together, what is the best health perspective for the employee and the patron.”
- Social and religious gatherings: “Social and religious gatherings are actually going to be able to increase from 20 up to gatherings of up to 50 people. We want to make sure everybody has a chance to get together to find a sense of community and can get moving ahead.”
- Gyms and fitness centers: “Opening up gyms and fitness centers, they were previously allowed to do outdoor activities, now we’re going to say they can move into indoor activities at 25% of your capacity with walk-ins permitted. We want to maintain ten-foot social distancing because of the exertion aspect. You’ll be projecting and breathing hard and moving the virus around. We want to take care of that.”
- There is also more on the way in Phase Two: “Upcoming stuff that we’re going to be working on and hope to have released soon is talking about intrastate travel, getting around Alaska. What does that mean, what does that look like. We’re trying to put together the best guidance as we look out for our state. We hope to very soon have a time-frame where we can say, ‘You know what, we like doing this on this date using these safety protocols.'”
The Governor said that smaller communities in Alaska, those who lack more-robust health care, may need to take things a little slower, especially with regards to non-essential travel. Despite that, the Governor still expects things to open up widely on Friday, May 8.