In a short letter to the editor on Oct. 26, Donald Anderson expressed puzzlement as to why Alaska is putting forth such great efforts to combat COVID-19. He pointed out that other physical ailments, such as, “cancer, heart disease, accidents... stroke, suicide, etc…” together cause 40 times the number of deaths annually in Alaska as has COVID-19. He said, “We seem to favor lockdowns and spending vast amounts of money on our 10th most common disease. Why?”
I think I can answer Mr. Anderson’s question: All the other ailments listed in his letter are non-infectious, whereas COVID-19 is a highly infectious disease. Thus, if immediate and strong safeguards to limit the spread of COVID-19 were not adopted, it might then easily and quickly spread throughout the state, and become the most common cause of death in Alaska.
By the way, many thanks to Alaska’s state and local governments for taking proper steps to minimize the spread of COVID-19.
Stephan Paliwoda
Anchorage
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