Editorial: COVID action needed
Edmonton Journal Editorial Board
NOV 11,2020
As a second wave of COVID-19 surges, Albertans are right to wonder about the Kenney government’s response this time around. By most every metric, the virus is hitting the province significantly harder than it did early on but with a much more hands-off approach from authorities.Last Saturday, Alberta set a new-single day case record of 919 new infections and hundreds of new ones have appeared daily since then. Before Oct. 29, Alberta had never exceeded 600 cases in a single day. As of Monday, the virus has sent 39 Albertans to intensive care, meaning more than half of the province’s ICU beds marked for COVID are currently occupied. A 50-per-cent occupancy rate previously triggered new restrictions. At the same time, R values — the rate of viral spread — in Edmonton and Calgary now sit at a worrisome 1.1 new cases for every infection and Alberta’s contact tracers are so overwhelmed, they have switched to only contacting those deemed at highest risk of a poor health outcome.But the swelling caseloads and hospitalizations so far haven’t set off the same kind of emergency lockdown measures the province implemented in the first few months before starting to loosen restrictions on May 14. Instead, there is a “strong recommendation,” without enforcement or sanctions, for people in Edmonton and Calgary to restrict gatherings within their homes to only those they live with.
© Provided by Edmonton Journal Premier Jason Kenney speaks at the daily COVID-19 update with Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta’s chief medical officer of health, on March 13, 2020.What’s different now appears to be political reticence about shutting businesses down again and impinging on personal freedoms. Premier Jason Kenney acknowledged as much during last Friday’s COVID update: “We’ve seen other jurisdictions implement sweeping lockdowns, indiscriminately violating people’s rights and destroying livelihoods. Nobody wants that to happen here,” he said.
The dilemma as Kenney presents it — we can either choose to protect people from the virus or protect the economy — is a fallacious one. We can find ways to protect people, and also protect the economy.
That’s the point that more than 70 doctors, including emergency and intensive care physicians are making in an open letter to Kenney expressing their concerns that rising COVID cases could overwhelm the health-care system if the infection rate isn’t brought down and additional measures are not taken.
“The province should consider a two-week short, sharp lockdown or ‘circuit breaker,’ to drop the effective reproductive number and allow contact tracing to catch up,” the letter stated.
No one wants Albertans to lose their jobs or the economy to tank, but leaving people to their own devices isn’t working; the coronavirus is spreading and that’s not only threatening people’s livelihoods, it’s costing too many Albertans their lives and loved ones.
Local editorials are the consensus opinion of the Journal’s editorial board, comprising Colin McGarrigle , Dave Breakenridge and Bill Mah. (THE DIVERSITY IS LACKING BOYS)
Edmonton Journal Editorial Board
NOV 11,2020 As a second wave of COVID-19 surges, Albertans are right to wonder about the Kenney government’s response this time around. By most every metric, the virus is hitting the province significantly harder than it did early on but with a much more hands-off approach from authorities.Last Saturday, Alberta set a new-single day case record of 919 new infections and hundreds of new ones have appeared daily since then. Before Oct. 29, Alberta had never exceeded 600 cases in a single day. As of Monday, the virus has sent 39 Albertans to intensive care, meaning more than half of the province’s ICU beds marked for COVID are currently occupied. A 50-per-cent occupancy rate previously triggered new restrictions. At the same time, R values — the rate of viral spread — in Edmonton and Calgary now sit at a worrisome 1.1 new cases for every infection and Alberta’s contact tracers are so overwhelmed, they have switched to only contacting those deemed at highest risk of a poor health outcome.But the swelling caseloads and hospitalizations so far haven’t set off the same kind of emergency lockdown measures the province implemented in the first few months before starting to loosen restrictions on May 14. Instead, there is a “strong recommendation,” without enforcement or sanctions, for people in Edmonton and Calgary to restrict gatherings within their homes to only those they live with.
© Provided by Edmonton Journal Premier Jason Kenney speaks at the daily COVID-19 update with Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta’s chief medical officer of health, on March 13, 2020.What’s different now appears to be political reticence about shutting businesses down again and impinging on personal freedoms. Premier Jason Kenney acknowledged as much during last Friday’s COVID update: “We’ve seen other jurisdictions implement sweeping lockdowns, indiscriminately violating people’s rights and destroying livelihoods. Nobody wants that to happen here,” he said.
The dilemma as Kenney presents it — we can either choose to protect people from the virus or protect the economy — is a fallacious one. We can find ways to protect people, and also protect the economy.
That’s the point that more than 70 doctors, including emergency and intensive care physicians are making in an open letter to Kenney expressing their concerns that rising COVID cases could overwhelm the health-care system if the infection rate isn’t brought down and additional measures are not taken.
“The province should consider a two-week short, sharp lockdown or ‘circuit breaker,’ to drop the effective reproductive number and allow contact tracing to catch up,” the letter stated.
No one wants Albertans to lose their jobs or the economy to tank, but leaving people to their own devices isn’t working; the coronavirus is spreading and that’s not only threatening people’s livelihoods, it’s costing too many Albertans their lives and loved ones.
Local editorials are the consensus opinion of the Journal’s editorial board, comprising Colin McGarrigle , Dave Breakenridge and Bill Mah. (THE DIVERSITY IS LACKING BOYS)
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