Print article Alaska’s top public health officials and hospital representatives urged legislators to extend the state’s COVID-19 emergency declaration Thursday as the clock ticks toward the mid-February date when it expires. The declaration provides authority for everything from mandated airport COVID-19 traveler testing and increased hospital capacity to National Guard deployments for vaccine distribution. A 30-day extension expires Feb. 14. Gov. Mike Dunleavy last month introduced legislation to extend the declaration potentially into September. But now that bill, Senate Bill 56, is stalled in committee and faces some resistance in the Legislature, where it’s increasingly possible that lawmakers may not be willing or possibly able, given the tight timeline to approve a declaration that some Alaskans see as part of a larger crackdown on individual freedoms.