Murkowski calls on Alaskans to ‘show kindness’ amid pandemic tensions

Updated: 11 hours ago Posted: 15 hours ago

This article originally appeared on Alaska Public Media and is republished here with permission.

Lisa Murkowski spoke in the US Senate on Friday calling on Alaskans to be kinder to healthcare workers and to each other.

“We can have disagreements. We can have different points of view, ”said Senator Murkowski. “You can express them without degrading yourself, without denigrating yourself, without humiliating yourself and making fun of each other. “

The Senior Alaska Senator, a moderate Republican, cited the worst case rate of COVID in Alaska and its hospitals at its peak. Murkowski said exhausted hospital workers deserve to be appreciated, but have been mocked, threatened and even spat at when they called for public health measures.

[Alaska health workers face anger and threats from COVID patients and public]

“They are literally going to turn the other cheek and make sure that the care they provide in this intensive care unit, in this emergency room, is without discrimination as to whether you have been vaccinated or not,” he said. she declared. “They will be there to take care of you. So, please, can we be kind to each other in these times of stress? “

She called it “shocking” that people at a public meeting in Anchorage this week are wearing yellow Stars of David to protest a proposed mask warrant by comparing it to the Holocaust.

[Jewish leaders decry use of Holocaust symbolism to protest Anchorage mask ordinance]

His advocacy for civility could serve to widen the rift between Murkowski and the Alaskan conservatives. Many on the right wing of his party downplayed the importance of the hospital crisis, accused healthcare workers of exaggerating and questioned the use of masks and vaccines.

Murkowski said she saw the hospital crisis in Fairbanks with her own eyes a few weekends ago, when she went to the emergency room with a loved one. She did not name him, but said he had a non-COVID emergency. Because the state’s intensive care units were full, she said she had to prepare for the possibility of him being evacuated to Seattle or Portland.