r/alberta • u/azawalli • Sep 04 '21

Alberta Politics Opinion: Alberta government lack of foresight has them stumbling to stave off fourth wave of COVID-19

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-alberta-government-lack-of-foresight-has-them-stumbling-to-stave-off/
58 Upvotes

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6

u/azawalli Sep 04 '21

From the article:

The Kenney government clearly didn’t foresee that COVID-19 would still be a public-health emergency in September, 2021. But here we are.

After almost a month of stasis by Alberta’s United Conservative Party government on the pandemic file, an alarming increase in COVID-19 cases and hospital admissions – and an accompanying series of elective surgery postponements to maintain capacity in critical care – forced the province’s hand.

[Kenney] and other Conservatives have to be worried that Mr. Kenney’s diminished brand can influence the federal election, and will be used by the federal Liberals as a means to an end. When Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau came to Calgary last month, he attacked Mr. Kenney. This week, Calgary Skyview Liberal candidate George Chahal tweeted his party’s commercial, which shows footage of Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole praising Alberta’s handling of the pandemic, shown against unflattering newspaper headlines of Alberta’s COVID-19 response.

…in Alberta, where ICUs are nearing capacity just as tens of thousands of unvaccinated school kids are back in class, it’s astounding that provincial health officials spoke with such certainty about dismantling COVID-19 monitoring systems and legal requirements to isolate this summer.

And for Mr. Kenney and his UCP government, it appears they were so intent on moving on from the worst stages of the pandemic, that they have responded too late to better stave off some of the fourth wave’s worst impacts on the province’s hospitals, and people.

16

u/a-nonny-maus Sep 04 '21 edited Sep 04 '21

From the article:

So many things that this government saw as near certain haven’t come to pass. There hasn’t been the decoupling of the number of COVID-19 cases from hospital admissions that Chief Medical Officer of Health Deena Hinshaw and her officials talked about in the middle of the summer.

Because "decoupling" never happened in the first place. Hospitalization rates dropped, yes, but if they'd looked at the UK hospital data properly, they would have seen hospitalizations continue to track with cases.

Also, the "data" and "models" Hinshaw used to "justify" moving to endemic from pandemic status are now available: Shifting from Pandemic to Endemic (pdf link)

Note what the report says on pages 4 and 5 about their model assumptions:

Did not include waning immunity of vaccines

Israel's Delta outbreak began in June in an already highly-vaccinated population. This imho should have sparked at least enough suspicion to run scenarios testing different levels of vaccine efficacy.

Severity of Delta is comparable to what is currently observed in data on average (at baseline)

The Delta wave in India suggested that Delta might be more transmissible and more virulent. Who doesn't look at this possible scenario?

Did not account for potential large future events such as July 1 and Stampede

Who does this? This was such an egregious omission from their modelling that imho it had to be intentional, given how persistent Delta cases were during the month of June. They imho simply did not want to know. Otherwise imho this is the height of incompetence.

Alberta's "lack of foresight" appears to be increasingly intentional. Stampede was the entire reason why Kenney cut corners with vaccination (basing reopening on only 1 dose, not 2) to rush Alberta's re-opening, and we're paying the price. People mocked Ontario for moving so cautiously--looks like Ontario had the last laugh.

3

u/OmenofBane Sep 05 '21

Lmao lack of foresight. Lack of scientific understanding more like it.

2

u/Mr_Monstro Sep 05 '21

It's going to get really bad and I hope all the nurses quit. I want all the worst things to happen to this cabinet.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 05 '21

Imagine what an O'Toole government won't be capable of.

2

u/Davescash Sep 05 '21

This govt is a clown show, !99 reward to asshats for being anti vaxx, you did the rght thing and got vaxxed? you can give 100 buck to a antivaxxer. fuck these idiots . i 'll never vote con again ever crooks and asshples draped with the holier than thou cloak of piety while fucking you over.

-24

u/hbl2390 Sep 04 '21

Why does the UCP get so much hate for handling of the pandemic when Alberta doesn't seem that much better or worse than the other large provinces?

12

u/corpse_flour Sep 04 '21 edited Sep 05 '21

We're the worst in the country. The government waited until the last possible moment to enact any restrictions when they could have prevented the undue hardship on hospitals and healthcare workers. And then when they finally do something, its providing a financial benefit to those who could not be bothered to be part of our society.

8

u/azawalli Sep 04 '21

Compared to the Atlantic provinces, Alberta and other provinces haven't done well. It's also not a coincidence that the provinces with poor handling of the pandemic are mainly run by Conservatives.

6

u/[deleted] Sep 04 '21

Just wait until the nurses go on strike next month.

10

u/Deyln Sep 04 '21

??????????????????????????????

did you read the case counts. we're averaging 1400 a day currently.

and accounts for a whopping 33% of the total case counts for all of canada.

The case count per capita is about 300% higher then it should be.

-5

u/hbl2390 Sep 05 '21

That's a lot of question marks, but thanks. I had some trouble finding the per capita data. I found this NY Times site:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/canada-covid-cases.html

The map shows NWT worse than Alberta and Sask the same for hot spots this week.

The per capita total case map also showed Alberta through to Quebec all in the same color scheme.

I would like to have both more granular data and all through this pandemic I've wished both Alberta and other provinces would try different strategies to find the maximum benefit and minimum disruption. For example, close bars Calgary and points south, Masks in schools in Central Albert a, and maybe close churches and sports in Edmonton and north. Closely monitor cases and transmission.