Anchorage acting mayor feeling well following positive COVID-19 results

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - Anchorage Acting Mayor Austin Quinn-Davidson said she’s feeling well following the announcement Sunday that she had tested positive for COVID-19.

“I feel like I have a cold, so I’m a little tired, I’m a little congested, but in general, I feel pretty well,” she said.

Quinn-Davidson received positive test results Sunday after being tested the day before. She said that was the third test she’d taken since she started feeling cold-like symptoms on Nov. 29, the first two coming back negative. Quinn-Davidson’s wife also tested on Saturday, which came back negative.

“We’ll have her test in the coming days just to make sure, but we’re both isolating and staying at home,” Quinn-Davidson said.

She said she’s thankful her symptoms are relatively mild and added that the experience has made her more sympathetic to those more adversely affected by the virus.

“We have people who are far sicker, people who have to be hospitalized,” she said. “And I think it just reminds me how prevalent this virus is and how easy it is to get it.”

On the topic of prevalence, Quinn-Davidson remarked on the way the virus spreads. She noted that she’d been masking up for weeks, working from home and spent Thanksgiving with her wife only. She went on an outdoor bike ride with a friend, as well as visited a store, but added she didn’t know where she contracted the virus. Despite those precautions, she did get sick but argued it doesn’t make those steps any less important.

“That’s like saying if you get in a car accident, you had your seatbelt on, but you were still injured, that there’s just no point in wearing a seatbelt,” she said. “I think all we can do as individuals to protect those in our community is to do our best and take all the precautions we know that work.”

Looking ahead, Quinn-Davidson said she and her wife plan on remaining in isolation for some time, and that she would be calling into Tuesday’s Anchorage Assembly meeting, where the Assembly will vote on her proposal to reallocate $15.4 million in Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act and general funds to an economic relief package for the municipality.

“We have sponsorship from every single assembly member,” she said. “So I think we’re safe to say that this will happen.”