Kenai Peninsula Borough Mayor Charlie Pierce took to social media on Monday morning to ask residents for help in curbing the spread of COVID-19. He proposed the use of preventative measures and efforts to slow the spread. He expressed his desire for the economy to keep going uninterrupted, as well as the importance of seeing schools re-open next month, but hopes to see behaviors on the peninsula that will be conducive to reducing the spread.
His message serves as a call-to-action for Borough residents to use CDC standard practices more aggressively: “There are three tools that the CDC has given us from the very, very beginning. Wash extensively, clean surfaces – so we have that washing component that hopefully we’re all practicing every day throughout the day – it’s not just once a day, it’s multiple times throughout the day. Second, we were told to social distance about six-feet. There are these little particulates, droplets, that we emit when we talk and these droplets actually go out and you can’t see them but the virus could be in those droplets.”
With regards to masks, the third CDC guideline the Mayor referenced, he echoed Governor Dunleavy’s remarks from last week which called for Alaskans to utilize masks but to do so without the need of a government mandate: “I want to help protect you from me. When I’m in close proximity to you, or I’m in a meeting and I can’t social distance, I’ll wear a mask. I don’t think we need mandates to tell us to wear a mask or not to wear a mask. Put one in your pocket. Carry it with you. If you need it, have it readily-available.”
He also compared the COVID-19 outbreak to previous illnesses, such as flu outbreaks or H1N1, but acknowledged that this time is different primarily because there is no COVID vaccine to help slow the spread this time around.
In early-May, Mayor Pierce said on social media that the Borough was “open for business,” openly inviting people from around the state to come to the Kenai. On Monday, he acknowledged his purpose in doing that: “It hasn’t been that long ago, I came to you and said we were open for business. My motivation for doing that was to help save the small businesses that operate here on the Kenai Peninsula. There are many of them. I said you are essential and I think you are. You are essential. All of us here on the peninsula are essential.”
He concluded his message with a challenge to residents of the Kenai: “Here’s your challenge, here’s your task, should you choose to accept it: take personal responsibility for yourselves. Let’s help protect each other and get these numbers down on the peninsula.”
As of Monday morning, there are 256 reported active cases of COVID-19 among residents of the Kenai Peninsula.