At the Iditarod, ‘they do a very good job of social distancing’

The coronavirus has stopped virtually all North American sports events in their tracks. But in Alaska, the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race is mushing on. The Iditarod began outside of Anchorage last weekend, before an array of major sports announced cancellations and postponements. Race leaders are now more than halfway down the trail, and while a post-race banquet and other celebratory events have been called off, there’s been no public discussion about stopping mushers and their dog teams before their finish in Nome.  State health officials attribute that to the nature of the event — a 975-mile race through the Alaskan wilderness during which mushers are mostly on their own. “They do a very good job of social distancing,” quipped Heidi Hedberg, Alaska’s public health director. Alaska’s first confirmed case of coronavirus was announced Thursday, and the patient was described as a foreign pilot of a cargo plane who came into contact with few people before visiting an Anchorage hospital. The Iditarod started five days earlier, before the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a pandemic. And nearly all the race’s mushers had been in Alaska long before that, said Rob Urbach, the Iditarod’s chief executive. The army of volunteers and spectators who follow the race present more of a risk of spreading the coronavirus, which poses a larger threat in rural Alaska given the lack of advanced health-care infrastructure there. But organizers are taking “every precaution we can think of,” Urbach said...MORE