Kenney to announce path to easing restrictions this week as hospitals remain strained

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Premier Jason Kenney is expected to make an announcement early this week on how Alberta will move toward lifting pandemic restrictions, including the vaccine passport program, as COVID-19 hospitalizations remain high across the province.

Kenney said during a Facebook Live on Thursday that a schedule for scrapping the Restrictions Exemption Program (REP) and almost all other public health measures would be set sometime this week, after the government’s COVID cabinet committee meets to discuss it.

The committee is expected to lay out a phased plan to remove restrictions as long as there is declining pressure on hospitals, Kenney said during the Facebook Live.

United Conservative Party caucus chair Nathan Neudorf suggested last week that Alberta will begin lifting restrictions “very soon, likely within days.” The first thing to go, according to both Kenney and Neudorf, will be the REP.

However, the announcement from Kenney is expected to come about a week after the premier told reporters that late February would be the earliest restrictions could be eased, given the immense pressure COVID-19 continues to have on the health system.

“Once we see a sustained reduction in COVID pressure on the hospitals, I am looking to being able to make decisions about moving toward relaxation of public health measures at that time,” Kenney said during a news conference Feb. 1.

When data was last updated by Alberta Health on Friday, the province reported 1,584 COVID patients in hospital, including 118 in intensive-care units. This was a slight decrease from the record highs logged earlier last week, when Alberta hospitalizations reached their peak for the entire pandemic.

An additional 26 deaths were reported Friday, bringing the province’s COVID death toll to 3,634.

Duane Bratt, political scientist at Mount Royal University, said the timeline for Kenney’s actions over the past couple of weeks is telling.

“You start with his press conference the Thursday before he went to Washington (D.C.), and he was asked what sort of metrics for the removal of restrictions were being used. He said they hadn’t developed any metrics but they’re looking at larger themes,” said Bratt.

“I don’t think that’s true. I think they actually have metrics but he didn’t want to say what they were, given that they’ve been using metrics for two years.”

In October 2021, when Kenney introduced the vaccine passport program, he said he “fully expects that we will have it in place through at least the first quarter of next year, 2022.”

When Kenney was asked during the news conference on Jan. 27 when restrictions might start being removed, he said mid-March. And just a few days later — on Feb. 1 — after he returned from Washington, D.C., Kenney told reporters he expected measures to be relaxed by the end of February.

“Then he goes on Facebook Live (on Thursday) and says it’ll be within days. That’s a pretty quick movement. Hospitalizations are still high, so what has changed?” Bratt said.

“What has changed are the protests in Coutts. What has changed are the back-channel negotiations between UCP MLAs and the truckers at Coutts. This isn’t being driven by health metrics. This isn’t being driven by a pre-established timeline. They are making up the timeline as they go along.”

Bratt said the premier is weighing what option will cost him and his government the least.

“The blockade is costing the Alberta economy hundreds of millions of dollars,” said Bratt.

“I think he’s antagonizing lots of Albertans because it looks like, at least it looks like to me, he’s conceding to lawless acts and he’s bending to this. Which is very different from how he responded to the blockades of rail lines and highways two years ago.”

Bratt said his concern is that Kenney drops the restrictions prematurely, and the protesters at Coutts continue to rally because there is still no indication Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is going to drop the federal vaccine mandate at the border.

“That’s ostensibly what they were supposed to be protesting in the first place,” he said.

It’s been another rough week for Kenney, ahead of his leadership review in a couple of months, Bratt said.

Dr. Gabriel Fabreau, a general internist and assistant professor at the University of Calgary, said on Twitter on Sunday that while everyone wants public health measures loosened, it needs to be a decision led by data. He said removing restrictions while hospitals are full affects care for everyone.

“Our hospital is far over capacity. Many admitted patients waiting in Emergency Department for beds, which backs up and increases Emergency Department wait times dramatically. ICU busy but not in crisis,” Fabreau posted.

Alberta Health reported 2,086 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday from 6,226 completed PCR tests. There were 32,711 lab-confirmed active cases in the province Friday.

sbabych@postmedia.com
Twitter: @BabychStephanie