am fortunate enough to be writing this month’s letter to you from my home. I say fortunate because in the midst of all the fear and uncertainty surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, we’re still working, and that’s no small thing—one quarter of the US economy is “on pause” as of early April for an unspecified amount of time as eight of ten US counties are under a variety of “hunker down” orders. Thankfully, the whole Alaska Business team is still here, committed as ever to delivering important news to our readers about how COVID-19 has affected and will continue to affect businesses and industry in Alaska.

This month I’ll pull the curtain back on our operations a little bit to give some clarity about why there are very few mentions of COVID-19 in this issue. As a print magazine, we work in the future. Meaning we plan our editorial calendar about a year in advance, adding stories throughout the year to special sections or if a timely topic comes up. And “timely” is the key word here. Even though we add stories as the year progresses, they are still assigned and written two months before publication. So in early March, all the stories in this issue were assigned and being researched and written—while at the same time we were just starting to feel the effects of this novel coronavirus, we weren’t all working from home yet, and we had only seen a handful of cases in Alaska. Now, just one month later, businesses all over the state have closed indefinitely putting hundreds out of work; those who are fortunate enough to be working are either working from home or are working under very difficult circumstances (don’t get me started on the healthcare situation); and confirmed COVID-19 cases have surpassed 300 in Alaska, 810,000 in the United States, and more than 2.5 million worldwide.

And, of course, every conference or meeting scheduled for May has been cancelled, delayed, or is being held virtually. For this reason we have chosen not to run the Community and Business Events Calendars for May.

Things are changing so rapidly that I cannot begin to predict what the state of COVID-19 will be when this issue is published on May 1, but I can predict that our mission of providing support to the business community in Alaska through in-depth news coverage won’t change. To that end, we’ve compiled a page of COVID-19 resources at akbizmag.com/covid-19/covid-19-updates to provide you with all the information you need to apply for the many programs being offered by state and federal governments.

Even though we’re all hunkered down at home, we are staying in close communication with our friends in the community (via phone, of course). This is an extremely trying time for everyone, but I hope there is comfort knowing we’re all in it together.

Be well,