Editorials

Even in a hard year, Alaskans have reasons to be grateful

It’s a safe bet that 2020 won’t be at the top of many people’s favorite years. A devastating pandemic, a resulting economic crisis, and a political climate more partisan, divided and acrimonious than any in recent memory have combined to leave many Alaskans in tough shape as the year winds to a close. But despite the obvious negatives 2020 has brought us, there are some real positives for which we owe thanks.

Coronavirus heroes

Though 2020 saw the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic in Alaska, sickening tens of thousands of our friends and neighbors and taking the lives of too many, that toll could have been far worse but for the work of front-line health care workers, public health officials and others who directly combated the disease and helped craft policy to slow its spread. It has been because of their good work that Alaska has ranked among the states with the fewest deaths per capita since the pandemic began. From emergency room doctors to nurse’s aides, from Chief Medical Officer Dr. Anne Zink to state health lab technicians to contact tracers, those facing the pandemic and doing their best to shield the rest of us from its impact deserve our deepest gratitude.

Essential workers

Among other things, 2020 offered us an education in which parts of our society we can least afford to have disrupted: Medical care. The supply chain. Groceries. Utilities. The internet. Many of us saw shifts in our working life, with businesses transitioning (abruptly, in many cases) to a work-from-home model, but for some workers, that wasn’t possible. For them, work has continued unabated as the pandemic rages, and although they’ve adopted health measures to try and blunt the risk of exposure to COVID-19, the danger of contracting the disease is present every day. Particularly for those working low-wage jobs, their contribution to keeping our communities moving belies the size of their paychecks.

All sides of the education equation

One of the most difficult and widespread adaptations we’ve had to make during the pandemic has been the near-total overhaul of education delivery. Students in the Anchorage School District haven’t seen in-person classes since mid-March, and the abrupt switch to classes via Zoom has been a major stress factor for everyone involved — students, teachers, parents, support staff and administrators. Across the state, public and private schools have had to tailor education solutions on the fly to an ever-changing situation, and despite difficulties, many have done so admirably. Parents, too, deserve major kudos for shouldering increased responsibility — everything from tutoring to tech support — for their children’s education. And the students deserve perhaps the greatest credit of all, dealing with a learning environment that looks nothing like what they’re used to — on top of all the everyday stresses unique to a pandemic.

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Timing

As bad as things have been during the COVID-19 pandemic, if the disease had struck at any time prior, its easy to envision how much worse circumstances could have been.

If the pandemic had struck during the 1950s, for instance, or even the 1980s, distance education would have been a largely unworkable prospect, and our communities would have been faced with the difficult decision to resume in-person instruction at great risk to public health, or to punt on an entire school year. And if COVID-19 had hit in the 20th century instead of the 21st, there would have been little hope that a vaccine could have been engineered so quickly. The delay in developing a vaccine would have had ripple effects around the world, with residents forced to endure the hardships of “hunker downs” and other measures for months or years longer before a vaccine became available.

The fast-tracked vaccines

The greatest success story of the pandemic has been the global drive to develop effective vaccines for COVID-19 that will allow us to resume our “normal” lives, if we can remember what those look like after nearly a year indoors so far. Leading candidates have sailed through clinical trials and are in the final phases of preparation before mass production and distribution to a waiting public. The development of these vaccines, some doses of which could arrive in Alaska as soon as Dec. 11, has been an unmitigated success. After hoping for so long that a cure for COVID-19 would soon be on the way, all of a sudden there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, and it’s hard to overstate what a mental boost that provides.

It’s been a hard year, but Alaskans are resilient. We’re adaptable. We’ll make it through. We wouldn’t live where we do if we were the type of people who throw up our hands when the going gets tough.

Anchorage Daily News editorial board

Editorial opinions are by the editorial board, which welcomes responses from readers. Board members are ADN President Ryan Binkley, Publisher Andy Pennington and Opinion Editor Tom Hewitt. The board operates independently from the ADN newsroom. To submit feedback, a letter or longer commentary for consideration, email commentary@adn.com.

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