As COVID emergency expires, Alaska’s border screening becomes optional
Published February 14
Share on Facebook
Print article
JUNEAU — Alaska’s mandatory border screenings for COVID-19 turned optional Sunday as a statewide COVID-19 emergency expired at midnight.
Gov. Mike Dunleavy said the airport action is the biggest obvious change caused by the end of the emergency, but the state expects to find new implications over the next couple of weeks.
One issue discovered just last week: The end of the emergency means losing a third of the state’s $23 million monthly food stamp aid from the federal government.
Alaska has been operating under a state of emergency since March 2020 and now becomes the only state other than Michigan to lack a statewide COVID-19 emergency, according to the National Governors Association. In Michigan, local officials and the state’s health commissioner have issued separate declarations of emergency to fill the gap, but much of Alaska lacks a local government with health powers, and the health commissioner here lacks the power to take widespread emergency action.