KENNEY UNVEILS NEW MEASURES
■ Social gatherings could bring fines ■ Businesses will remain open ■ Students going back to online ■ Another 1,115 cases, 16 deaths
After weeks of mounting COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, intensive-care unit admissions and deaths, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney announced on Tuesday afternoon new restrictions aimed at curbing the rapidly growing spread of the virus.
Alberta also declared a state of public health emergency for the second time this year. The previous one lasted from March to June.
The measures target various types of social gatherings and impose new rules for businesses, schools and places of worship. Kenney rejected calls to implement a more widespread lockdown across the province, calling that option “an unprecedented violation of fundamental constitutionally protected rights and freedoms.”
Effective immediately, indoor social gatherings in any setting, including workplaces and homes, are banned across Alberta. Outdoor social gatherings are limited to a maximum of 10 people.
Indoor social contact should be limited to those within a single household. Those who live alone are permitted up to two non-household social contacts.
Funeral services and wedding ceremonies are limited to 10 in-person attendees. Receptions are not permitted.
The measures will be in place until further notice.
“We really just felt we had no option,” said Kenney, who said 40 per cent of traceable COVID-19 cases are connected to social gatherings.
The province won't set up a “snitch line” to enforce gathering rules, the premier said, but it would look to expand the number of enforcement officers designated to enforce public health orders, which would likely include some peace officers.
RESTRICTIONS TO SCHOOLS, BUSINESSES, PLACES OF WORSHIP ANNOUNCED
In all schools, students in grades 7 to 12 will transition to at-home learning Nov. 30. Students in early childhood services and grades K-6 will continue learning in-person until Dec. 18.
All students will resume in-person learning Jan. 11, 2021. Diploma exams will be optional for the rest of the school year.
The province is immediately imposing new mandatory restrictions at places of worship, businesses and services in areas under “enhanced status.”
Starting Friday, some businesses will be forced to close for in-person service. This affects banquet halls, conference centres, concert venues and all levels of sport.
All retail businesses will be reduced to 25 per cent capacity, but can remain open.
Hair salons, personal wellness services, hotels and professional services will be restricted to appointment-only.
Places of worship are limited to a maximum of one-third normal attendance per service. Physical distancing between households and masking are required. Faithbased leaders are encouraged to move services online.
In-person faith group meetings can continue, but must maintain physical distancing.
Those measures will remain in place for three weeks.
The province is also mandating mask use in Calgary and Edmonton, as well as surrounding areas. This measure differs from mandatory mask bylaws already in place in those cities, as it applies to all indoor workplaces.
Not following mandatory restrictions could result in fines of up to $1,000 per offence and up to $100,000 through the courts, according to the province.
“These restrictions are not about our preferences, they're not about politics, they're not about abstractions,” said Kenney, who was joined by Health Minister Tyler Shandro, Alberta Health Services president and CEO Dr. Verna Yiu and Alberta chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw for the announcement. “They are about both protecting peoples' lives and the livelihoods they depend on.”
PROVINCE REPORTS 1,115 NEW CASES OF COVID- 19, 16 DEATHS
Over the past month, Alberta has seen soaring COVID-19 infections, with record-setting hospitalizations and ICU admissions. On Tuesday, Alberta reported 1,115 new cases and 16 more COVID-19 related deaths, bringing the province's fatality toll to 492 since March.
On Oct. 23, there were 91 hospitalizations, with 13 COVID patients in ICU, according to provincial data. Hospitalizations had reached 348, while ICU admissions more than quintupled to 66, as of Tuesday.
During that same period, active cases across the province jumped from 3,722 to 13,349 reported on Tuesday.
There were 4,903 active cases in AHS' Calgary zone as of Tuesday.
But Kenney, who has for months stressed “personal responsibility” as the way out of the pandemic, refuted the notion that Tuesday's announcement was a sign his strategy had failed.
He said Alberta isn't “involved in a chase after zero” when it comes to COVID-19 cases.
“Alberta's response has been effective through most of the past nine months,” the premier said.
“In our view, the broader consequences for the health of our society would be intolerable to try to get to zero (cases) with widespread shutdown.”
He invoked the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, noting infringements on peoples' day-today lives must be a “last and final resort.”
“Since when should governments start with an impairment of fundamental Charter-protected right and freedoms?” Kenney said.
The province's clampdown on indoor social gatherings was applauded by Calgary emergency physician Dr. Joe Vipond, a vocal critic of the government's response in recent weeks.
But he said exempting religious services was an oversight, as was allowing restaurants and bars to remain operating.
“Casinos open, restaurants open despite strong CDC evidence for them being huge sources of transmission. This will not help,” Vipond said in a series of tweets.
And while an expansion of mandatory masking in Calgary and Edmonton was a good step, he said it still falls short of the provincewide measure his group Masks4canada has been pushing.
“Why not the rest of the province? (There are) six outbreaks in oilsands facilities, eight workplace outbreaks in the North,” he said.
Some of the new school restrictions will help, said Vipond, but should have included classroom masking and the province should have chosen to adopt Ottawa's contact-tracing app.
“If there is one overriding message, it is that these measures will improve transmission rates but likely not to the extent needed,” he said. “This essentially will cause a deeper lockdown in the near future that will last longer than is necessary.”
A weekend survey by Leger, commissioned for Postmedia, found 71 per cent of Albertans support the idea of a short-term lockdown, compared to 26 per cent who oppose the idea.
The poll asked more than 1,000 Albertans whether they were in favour of a two-week “circuit breaker,” in which all non-essential businesses would be closed to get spread of the COVID-19 virus under control.
Around 93 per cent of Albertans who said they preferred a lockdown indicated they would still support the idea if it were to fall over the traditional holiday period from December to early January.
PROVINCE TO REVIEW EFFECTS OF RESTRICTIONS IN MID- DECEMBER
Kenney said the province would review the effect of its new measures and possible next steps on Dec. 15.
He said Alberta's COVID-19 transmission rate — or R-value — must be below one to avoid harsher restrictions next month.
“If we do not start to bend the curve with this latest round of measures and greater effort by Albertans, let me be blunt, we will impose stricter measures, likely in three weeks' time,” said Kenney.
He noted the poor are the ones most likely to be affected by lockdowns, a step he said he hopes to avoid to reduce the burden on local businesses, as well as the mental health of Albertans.
“I wish the people advocating that we go to that extreme at this point were perhaps a little more transparent about what we know from the data on the broader social impact, particularly for the vulnerable,” Kenney said.
NDP Opposition Leader Rachel Notley said Kenney's new restrictions are “simply not enough.”
“We cannot know, unfortunately, exactly what Dr. Hinshaw recommended to this UCP cabinet, but I do not for one second believe it was this,” she said.
“I suspect that today's decisions were rather by his own ideology, combined with the internal political motivations of those in his UCP caucus.”
Notley said Kenney should have announced further assistance for small businesses affected by ongoing harsh economic conditions.
“Alberta remains the only place in the country where there is no provincial mask mandate, despite having the worst per-capita case rate in Canada,” said Notley.
“It is a cowardly decision by this premier.”