Friday's letters: Latest COVID measures fall short
Edmonton Journal 

© Provided by Edmonton Journal Alberta Premier Jason Kenney during a news conference regarding the surging COVID cases in the province in Calgary on Wednesday, September 15, 2021.


Most Albertans will appreciate the new COVID-19 health measures the government have and will be implementing. After reviewing the new measures, which came after two days of nearly non-stop meetings, I have to ask, “Mr. Premier, is this the best your government can come up with?”

Why do these measures not also include health-care and congregate-care settings as many have current outbreaks with residents and staff, where many have had two doses of the vaccines? Why was contact tracing not totally reinstated when the majority of cases are coming from unknown sources? Why are schools left to address outbreaks without government direction? Why will it take several more weeks to develop a QR code for the proof of immunization, which you said your government was “reluctantly” implementing?

For Albertans, this half-assed approach leaves too many questions without answers and your “Best Summer Ever” has now possibly become the Worst Fall-Winter Ever”!

Stephanie Shostak, Edmonton

Donate vaccination payoff to charity

To all people who chose to wait (after 18 months of crisis), could you please at least give your $100 to a charity, preferably one that works to help the Third World get their vaccinations? Because, sorry to say it, you do not deserve this money. Do something good for the world, even if you won’t do it for us.

J.N. Durvec, Edmonton

Second thoughts from unvaccinated?

David Staples reported unvaccinated Albertans have been 32 times more likely to end up in an ICU than fully vaccinated people and 99 per cent of those under 40 were unvaccinated. I wonder what percentage of those people and their families who are fully relying on our best medical care still believe that, for some vague reason, it was fully within their rights to contract their deathly illness.

Harry MacKendrick, Edmonton

Which patients should be treated first?

Re. “Health care for all regardless of their personal choices,” Letters, Sept. 14

Mr. Halicki’s narrative deserves a response. It’s not a question of personal choices but rather one of limited resources. Other preventable diseases he mentions have never overwhelmed our hospitals and dedicated medical staff. What does Mr. Halicki think a doctor should do if forced to choose, because of limited ventilators, between intubating a COVID patient who has done his best to protect himself and everyone else around him by masking and vaccinating, but yet has contracted COVID through no fault of his own; or intubating an irresponsible patient who has rejected masking and vaccinating, but also finds himself in ICU fighting for his life?

Given the current upward trend of COVID patients, the majority of whom have chosen to be irresponsible, doctors may yet find themselves confronting the unthinkable dilemma of “triage protocols.” Let us hope this never happens. But if it does, which patient does Mr. Halicki want to be in this scenario?

G.A. Phillips, Edmonton

New measures unfair to vaccinated

That’s it! I have had enough! Why should I, as a civic-minded Albertan, be denied access to my family, friends, health-care needs, and to public places because a number of citizens are refusing to be vaccinated? Your new measures are hurting the economy, and the health of Albertans.

When will you reverse your latest measures, and call for a certificate of vaccination to permit access to all services for vaccinated citizens? You must act now!

Lise Tremblay, Edmonton

Health-care crisis a failure of leadership

Premier Kenney, Minister Shandro and Dr. Deena Hinshaw have all assured us of their determination to protect our health-care system, so that it would be there for all Albertans, not just COVID patients. So what is going on? Clinics are shut down, testing for things such as colon cancer halted, cancer, heart, transplant and joint surgeries are postponed. Albertans will suffer and how many will die as a result?

We have the highest ICU occupancy in the history of the pandemic, but no one in government is stepping up. While ICU capacity is ramped up, it can only happen if other health services are sacrificed and even that has limits. Doctors will have to decide who lives and who gets denied treatment in real time.

This is an absolute failure of leadership. Where in God’s name are you? Where are all the other elected MLAs?

S.M. Hogan, Edmonton

Assist those who need help to get vaccinated

We have been reading in the news about people who had no time to get a vaccine, no transportation to a vaccine site, no child care to free themselves for a vaccine appointment. If you know someone in such a situation, and are able to help, please do so. COVID is not going away, our medical system is beyond repair; we must be there for each other.

Ask the unvaccinated how you can help them get vaccinated. I personally know people who have booked appointments for those who did not know how and driven their friends and neighbours to vaccine sites.

Dianne Post, Edmonton

The government is not our parent

Re. “Vaccine passport beats bribes,” Letters, Sept. 14

Likening Canadians to misbehaving children is neither a fair or accurate comparison. The two are not alike. The government is not our parent. We are not children who have not yet learned to think critically for ourselves nor do we require others to make decisions for us like a child. You may disagree with the decisions or responses of others but that doesn’t make your position any more right than theirs is.

B.J. Hall, Didsbury

Remember lack of action at ballot box

In the event of a public emergency, we, the public, have been told many times that the first duty of government is to protect and ensure the safety of the public regardless of political considerations. It seems that Mr. Kenney and his ministers, as well as the United Conservative Party as a whole, have either forgotten that principle, or didn’t know of it in the first place, or are willfully disregarding it.

No matter what the reason(s) for the UCP government’s lack action to control the fourth wave of this pandemic and to correct its mistakes of July 1, it speaks of colossal incompetence that, in the real world, is viewed as a firing offence. We, the voters, would do well to remember this come election time.

Robert McDonald, St. Albert

UCP always lags in pandemic fight

Throughout this pandemic, the UCP government has been five steps behind, only taking action when it’s too late to make a difference. The singular looming threat Premier Kenney cited to justify his too-late action was preventing the collapse of our health-care system. That exact scenario is now playing out, and our so-called leaders are closing their eyes, covering their ears, and singing la, la, la.

Meanwhile, the selfish and self-absorbed minority have flouted public health restrictions and shunned vaccines. They faced no consequences for this (since the risk of hospitalization and death is apparently trivial). But now, their actions have imperilled our health-care system and threatened the health and safety of every Albertan. You do not bribe people like this.

You bring in a vaccine passport that will, for the first time, make this minority experience the consequences of their decisions by limiting access to optional aspects of our society (while also protecting the vulnerable and vaccinated, who have sacrificed for the greater good of all).

Rome is burning; when will our leaders stop fiddling?

S.A. Blumenschein, Edmonton