In the mostly empty assembly chambers in Palmer, borough officials and one healthcare provider gave an update on COVID-19 that was viewed by thousands within hours.
Confirmed spread of the disease within Mat-Su remains low. According to Dr. Wade Erickson of Capstone Clinic, a bit over one percent of the borough’s population has been tested, and less than two percent of those have come back positive. Dr. Erickson says the more critical statistic is that there have yet to be any hospitalizations in the Mat-Su from COVID-19. While slowing the spread has been the primary goal for weeks, Dr. Erickson says that will need to change.
“The most important thing for us to remember at this point is that we need to gather immunity in our community. And in order to do that we need to safely reopen, which we’re attempting to do. We’re going to see in the next two weeks whether our case numbers spike, and more importantly, whether our hospitalization spike. We want our case numbers to go up. We’d like to get 80% of us exposed and immune.”
Dr. Erickson is specifically talking about young, healthy people who have limited contact with those who are at higher risk of complications from COVID-19. He and other speakers on Wednesday emphasized the importance of continuing many of the measures in place to prevent the virus from spreading too rapidly.
A hot topic throughout the COVID-19 pandemic has been the use of facemasks. Dr. Erickson reiterates that the masks are not primarily to prevent the individuals wearing them from getting the disease.
“The masks again are to keep us from spreading asymptomatically to other folks. It’s not to prevent you from getting it, necessarily. It’s to prevent the overall viral load that’s in the air. And so it’s extremely important that we that we wear our masks when we’re out and about.”
A growing question as what is normally tourism season approaches is what will happen to businesses that are reliant on the hundreds of thousands of visitors that typically visit the Northern Susitna Valley each summer. Assembly Member Stephanie Nowers says steps are being taken to gauge those impacts.
“This week we are going to be sending out a survey to all of the 8,000-plus businesses in the borough. That will help give us a sense of how you’re being impacted and how we might be able to help.”
What that help might look like is uncertain at this point. The borough is in the midst of its budget process, and Mayor Vern Halter says he would like to see some of the money received by the Mat-Su from the federal CARES Act go toward bringing visitors to the area again.
“I’d like to see a $1 million grant to the Mat-Su CVB to resurrect everything, to advertise, to attract visitors back to the Mat-Su Borough over the next years.”
Halter says he also wouldn’t be opposed to considering a grant program to help businesses, but it’s not clear whether the borough assembly would go along with those plans, or even how much money would be available if they did. The Mat-Su received more than $37 million in federal dollars, but there are other considerations to be made. Governor Mike Dunleavy has said that he wants to use state COVID-19 funds to replace vetoed school bond debt reimbursement, but some doubt the legality of such a move. If that debt were not to be covered by the state, it would fall to the borough to the tune of eighteen million dollars. Mayor Halter says he does not want to see that burden fall on property taxpayers, and, given his preference, the areawide mill rate would go down this year.
Ultimately, any spending of that magnitude is up the borough assembly. Public testimony on the budget continues, with the next hearing scheduled for Thursday at 6:00 pm.
