Alberta declares state of public health emergency
CALGARY, Alta. — Alberta has declared a state of public health emergency, sending junior high and high school students home from school, mandating mask-wearing in indoor workplaces in the Edmonton and Calgary regions only, and introducing new restrictions on indoor gatherings that eliminate many social gatherings.
Premier Jason Kenney, who has been quiet on the fight against COVID-19 in recent weeks — though he was self-isolating — made the announcement Tuesday, sounding grim as he read out details from correspondence fromalbertans about their fears and grief.
“This pandemic is a oncein-a-century public health challenge,” said Kenney.
Describing the restrictions as “the minimum restrictions needed right now,” Kenney announced a complete ban on indoor social gatherings, and capped outdoor gatherings at 10 people; weddings and funeral are also capped at 10 attendees and worship services — some have “flagrantly violated” public health rules, Kenney said — are capped at one-third of fire code limits.
Kenney also asked that anyone who can work from home should do so.
Various other measures are coming, too, including closures of sports leagues, new rules for restaurants and bars — although in-person dining will remain — and restrictions of some sectors, such as hair salons, to by-appointment only. Students in all grades will be sent home Dec. 18, and the winter break will run a week longer, until Jan. 11.
“Every newrestriction makes it tougher for business owners to stay open and for thousands of people to pay their bills,” said Kenney.
The measures will be evaluated in three weeks. “If these measures do not have meaningful impact — and that depends on how each one of us responds — we will be forced to take more drastic measures to protect the health-care system,” Kenney said.
The moves come after weeks of rising case counts, with a near-doubling in daily COVID-19 cases within the past week. Kenney announced 16 more deaths on Tuesday. In the previous 24 hours there had been 1,115 new cases, and the province's positivity rate was 8.3 per cent.
As of Monday afternoon, the province had more than 13,000 active cases, the most in the entire country, despite having fewer people than Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia. Deaths have climbed close to 500, and more than 300 people are in hospital, more than 60 of them in intensive care units.
The cabinet committee tasked with sifting through the options presented by Kenney and Dr. Deena Hinshaw, the province's chief medical officer, burned the midnight oil Monday, and as of Tuesday morning, was still working on its options. A promised morning announcement was pushed back into late afternoon. More than 50,000 people tuned into the Youtube broadcast of the announcement.
In the weeks leading up to Tuesday's restrictions, there were calls from hundreds of doctors in the province for the government to implement new measures in order to keep the hospital system from collapsing under the strain. The United Conservative government has been reticent to implement further restrictions, citing the balance between the harms of a prolonged economic closure and the harms of the COVID19 pandemic. Government ministers have praised the public health measures as the “lightest touch” in the country, allowing for economic reopening ahead of many other jurisdictions.
All that aside, on Nov. 12, a handful of new measures were implemented, including a cutoff on serving alcohol past 10 p.m., closures of group fitness studios and cancellation of team sports and restrictions on the number of people allowed at private indoor gatherings to 15. The restrictions simultaneously irritated those opposed to lockdown measures, and angered those who wanted the government to go further.
“No doubt, the balance between politics, the economy and health care is challenging,” says the most recent of letters from doctors to the government demanding a lockdown. “However, right now, health care must prevail.”
Alberta's contact tracing system is overwhelmed, and at present, the overwhelming majority of active cases are of unknown provenance. Over the course of the pandemic, roughly 40 per cent of cases were linked to social or household gatherings. Very few were definitively linked to restaurants or bars, though data from other jurisdictions suggest there may be more spread in those places than the data might show.
Onmonday, new polling fromthinkhq Public Affairs, a Calgary public relations firm, showed Albertans were, broadly speaking, supportive of the mid-month attempts to clamp down on the spread, with 29 per cent feeling the measures were justified, while another 51 per cent felt they didn't go far enough.
“Every new restriction makes it tougher for business owners to stay open and for thousands of people to pay their bills.”
Jason Kenney Alberta premier