Front Burner - ‘Confusion, fear or anger’ over Alberta’s COVID-19 restriction rollback

Episode Date: August 6, 2021

There is growing anger around Alberta’s rollback of COVID-19 restrictions. Today on Front Burner, Macleans’ Alberta correspondent Jason Markusoff digs into what might be behind the controversial move.

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That's what we appreciate. Last stop, vaccinate. That's what we appreciate. For more than a week, the Alberta government's plan to lift public health restrictions has fueled anger in the province. There have been protests in Calgary and Edmonton over how, for example, in a few weeks' time, those who test positive for COVID will no longer need to isolate. Whose health? Our health. Whose children? Our children. Let's do this.

Physicians are worried about the speed of these changes and also how ICUs might be overwhelmed as a result. The Canadian Pediatric Society called it a risky and unnecessary gamble, and even the federal health minister has stepped in to say that more caution is needed here. The situation has gotten so tense that Alberta's chief medical health officer, who came up with the plan, had to defend it in an op-ed this week. Today, McLean's Alberta correspondent, Jason Markasoff, is here to talk about the fallout to all of this and why it might be happening. Hi, Jason. Thanks for being here. My pleasure. So I want to start by going through a quick list of what's no longer mandatory in Alberta. Right now, if you get COVID, you need to isolate, but your close contacts don't have to.

If you test positive, you'll of course know about it, but contact tracers won't notify your close contacts anymore. That'll be up to you. And then starting August 16th, if you test positive, isolating will be recommended, but it won't be mandatory. And routine testing will no longer be offered for most people. And masking won't be required in the fall at schools. Jason, this is really an unusual approach compared to the rest of the country. And on top of that, there are worries that COVID is spreading at a rate faster than the third wave in the province. What concerns are there about the effects of all of this?

It's radical. And I think for a lot of people, it's a shock to the system. This was announced in the middle of this latest surge in the middle of July, a couple of weeks after Stampede, a couple of weeks after we became the most, quote unquote, open province in the country. The country stampede, unbelievable! The greatest outdoor show on earth is back, but not without some COVID precautions. At a time when we are used to hearing as cases rise that we tighten restrictions, here comes Dr. Dina Henshaw saying we are going headlong, very fast, into a full-on post-COVID age.

And now look at us. Our active cases have quadrupled in three weeks, and people are just stunned. Are there any concerns about children under 12 who right now are still not eligible to be vaccinated? That's an elemental concern because the people, let's face it, the people who are concerned are the ones who are vaccinated. And of course, their young children cannot be vaccinated, are not vaccinated. And they've, you know, they've lived through the anxiety of the school year last year, when there were so many tests and, you know, testing and isolations. And I mean, they kept schools open the whole time, but there were many, you know, classes shut down because of testing. I mean, my own, my own two year old son had had COVID through, you know, through transmission at daycare, that the ample data on the low risk to

kids of getting a severe case that gives some comfort, but people naturally still want to protect their children from any risk of disease as much as possible. And for many people like that, this will seem like an undue risk. Yeah. And beyond people in that age group, Alberta has one of the highest rates of unvaccinated people in the country, correct? That's right. I mean, we're not talking about giant differences, but Alberta's at, I think, last count I saw was 64% of the population, including children. The total population have one dose. 56% have two. That compares with 71% nationally, the national average, and 60% for two doses. So we're behind. We're not that far behind. But clearly, there's an ample amount of vaccine hesitancy or opposition here in Alberta. So that still means that we have one third of our population, including the children, unvaccinated. So Jason, I mentioned the protests

off the top, but there are lots of other people who are condemning Alberta's plan, or at the very least, they're scratching their heads and wondering why this is happening, including Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi, for instance. What can you tell me about that? He's been concerned. He's been saying that if we really let this virus go untracked and unchecked throughout the community and not worry about it until it lands in the hospital, then we run the risk of a mutation. There's, you know, talk about worries about, you know, an Alberta variant. Uncontrolled outbreaks is what allow viruses to mutate. That's where variations come from. And man, I don't want to unleash an Alberta variant on the world. Not sure what Greek letter it would take. But if, you know, if we let things go unchecked,

there is a risk that mutations could foster here. You know, and it's not just experts in Alberta. This is, as Alberta is a major outlier on this and one of the largest provinces, you've heard the Canadian Pediatric Association call this a very risky gamble. And just yesterday, Federal Health Minister Patty Haidu, according to a letter obtained by the Globe and Mail's James Keller, that she's advising the Alberta Health Minister, Tyler Shandro, to explain this and give us the data bolstering Alberta's unique position in Canada. Going back to Calgary's mayor, one of the things that he said that jumped out to me is he basically called this plan, quote, the height of insanity. That's pretty strong

language. And there's a lot of people saying that. Up till now, we haven't really seen protests by people opposed to Jason Kenney's rather libertarian stance on restrictions or on COVID measures. They're not huge rallies, but they really display the depth of anxiety and depth of worry that people have right now. The critical things in holding an outbreak are test, trace, and isolate. And those are precisely the things the Alberta government is removing. There'll be no more testing. There's no more contact tracing. And someone who tests positive is totally free to get on the bus or the train or go to a football game or go to a restaurant and infect others. And I need to remind you, there's a million

unvaccinated people in Alberta. So you have the Alberta government introducing this plan to loosen public health restrictions. And again, that plan includes not making isolation mandatory after you test positive for COVID. There's been tremendous blowback from residents and the medical community. So, Jason, tell me, how is Alberta's chief medical health officer, Dr. Dina Hinshaw, defending this approach? And if I'm not mistaken, she recently had to write an op-ed explaining this. It was a curious thing because she started off by apologizing for making people feel the way they feel, but then basically just re-explained her rationale for this. And a lot of it is rooted in this faith that the level of vaccination in Alberta has completely changed the

game. Cases may rise, as they have in the past, but hospitalizations won't. That's part of it. The other major part of it is that children in her papers, she argues, are not very much at risk. There is some truth behind that. It's important to remember that COVID-19 is not the only risk our kids face and in fact for young children for children under 12 in particular COVID-19 infection is equivalent to or even possibly slightly less risky than something like seasonal influenza. If we look at our last seasonal influenza year of 2019-2020 we had a higher ICU rate for influenza in kids between the ages of five and nine than we've had for COVID-19 throughout the last 17 months. And I think, again...

And the other thing that she discusses is that Alberta needs to really shift its public health focus to other concerns. Alberta has had a really bad syphilis outbreak uh over the past few years um the opioid outbreak which is hitting alberta quite hard especially in the last uh year so and uh the annual influenza situation which you know in the past has you know last year we didn't have influenza in this province but other years it is it does hit you know in the traditionally pretty you know hard in certain populations, including children who are more susceptible to getting sick from influenza. We know that influenza will be coming back, RSV, as two viruses that cause a lot of illness in our population.

And we need to be able to be ready for that and get our system ready. So as we looked at that, we knew that we wouldn't be able to continue to test everyone with just a mild illness, just a mild sniffle. That just wouldn't be possible because there's going to be so many more viruses out there. Other provinces also have these health concerns to worry about, but we are not seeing other jurisdictions say we have to abandon a lot of our COVID tracking and COVID tracing and isolating for the sake of these other things. Other provinces thus far are happy to walk and chew gum at the same time. happy to walk and chew gum at the same time. So, I mean, one of the things that jumped out about her rationale is her saying we can't test every runny nose and every sore throat at this point in the game. So, Jason, with that being said, what do Albertans think of her defense?

This government has lost the moral authority to govern. Dina Henshaw has lost the moral authority to be our public health leader. We want resignations. I can't believe they would do this like two weeks before school starts and everyone goes back to university and colleges. I would think if you're thinking of doing this, like at least wait until the end of September or sometime in October to see what happens when everyone goes back to school. A lot of people who are frustrated about this abandonment of restrictions would like her to roll it back.

The former premier and current NDP leader, Rachel Notley, is talking about rolling it back. This is the beginning manifestation or demonstration of the outrage that we've been hearing from Albertans over the last 48 hours since that announcement was

first made. People are dumbfounded. They are shocked. You even have some Calgary mayoral candidates advocating for that in the open mayoral election after Nenshi steps down. There's, you know, I think, look, a lot of people are, you know, have made the argument, experts and others. And I think it's one that makes sense that we need to adapt to the era of vaccination. That does change the game in a lot of ways for how COVID spreads and how it gets people sick and how it kills people. But I think the overarching question in all this is, you know, how fast does the game change? Delta variant is changing the game of it fast does the game change? Delta variant is changing the game a bit itself on the other side of the ledger too. No other jurisdiction in Canada

seems to be this ready to go this fast. And I think it's that speed that is helping underpin a lot of the anxiety out there. And Dina Hinshaw's letter didn't do much to help that. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years.

I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples. I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. It seems like Dr. Hinshaw is trying to calm anxieties about this plan by saying that the province will still have a robust surveillance system to monitor COVID, including wastewater monitoring and also doing outbreak testing. We'll talk about the politics, the political side of this issue a bit later. But first, I want to ask you, Jason,

is there a chance that Dr. Henshaw just believes that this is a solid decision based in science? Oh man, that's a hard question to ask to answer without considering the politics of it. She has stood behind this. She has very firmly stood behind of it. She has stood behind this. She has very firmly stood behind this decision. She's owned this decision. She's given interviews to CBC Radio to justify her decision. She wrote this op-ed. She's been the public face of this, where she hasn't been.

She's been the public face of more so restrictions and daily updates, but not a dramatic policy shift. So there's no tacit proof that she isn't behind what she's saying. But, you know, it's peculiar how much of an outlier this is and how much it generally aligns with the political view on COVID that Jason Kenney and his government dispels. With respect to the announcement made by Dr. Hinshaw last week, this is something that she and her team and the public health branch of the Department of Health developed over some time, presented it to our COVID cabinet committee, and we accepted, without modification, the proposal that came forward from the chief medical officer of health, which is based on

science and data, particularly on the powerful science and data behind the protective effect of the vaccines, which has, as she says, dramatically changed the context of COVID-19. as she says, dramatically changed the context of COVID-19. So to quote Dr. Hinshaw herself, she said, quote, I care deeply about the health of all Albertans. Premier Jason Kenney has been going out of his way seemingly to say that this is Dr. Hinshaw's plan, even quoting her during a press conference or saying that he accepted the plan without any modifications. Those kind of things jump out. Yeah, if that's the case, it may go against what we do know about generally the way that bureaucrats give recommendations to politicians. Normally, they give a range of

options. They'll give, you know, like the, you know, sort of like Goldilocks, a little bit hot, a little bit cold, and then the one just right in the middle. And that tends to be the solution. So, and that seems to, she has said herself that she tends to give a range of options and a suite of recommendations and policy choices to government. If that was the case in this situation, I cannot imagine a more radical, more unrestricted or freewheeling set of policy recommendations she could have given on this front. So she's clearly, you know, she's conveying a level of comfort with this. And Jason Kenney, he's certainly happy to attribute this all to her and not to his own political will.

Staying on the topic of Premier Jason Kenney, the United Conservative Party is hurting in the polls right now. Kenney's had low approval ratings for months. Could that explain a bit the approach that we're seeing from the government as far as the restrictions are concerned? Throughout the pandemic, and especially in the last, let's say, eight months or so, Jason Kenney's really been hurting on his right flank, it seems. There is a sizable number of people, particularly in rural, particularly in hardened,

conservative areas of the province and populations in the province, who really chafed at the restrictions, closing restaurants, closing gyms, even though Alberta tended to be more lenient than most other provinces. But people still felt it really went against Jason Kenney's professed love of libertarianism and letting people live wild and free, but living free and having their freedoms protected. and having their freedoms protected. That really helped underpin his rapid reversal of all the restrictions in the past few months. I've been not picking up on a lot of people happy with him.

They believe that restrictions are over now on the hard right in their conservative base, but they're not happy with him. There seems like this frustration is now well ingrained. This further abandonment of restrictions strikes me that it could be a way of showing to that base that he's really committed to moving to a post-COVID era, really going to embrace what they're doing. And that's going to court with other certain policy measures he has, like this equalization referendum, his justice minister advocating pepper spray be legalized in Canada, or at least in Alberta,

these red meat measures for the right flank of his United Conservative Coalition. However, I think in doing so, For the right flank of his United Conservative Coalition. However, I think in doing so, there's a major risk of taking his eye off the centre and abandoning the centre, ceding that ground to Rachel Notley. And I don't hear people out there, maybe except on the extreme right, asking for no more mandatory isolation for positive COVID cases. So I think that this is a move that is going to be really unpopular, except for a few people. It seems like it's a complicated situation as far as who the government may want to appease. But overall, does this bring up questions about the independence that Dr. Henshaw has as chief medical officer? I mean, there's always been questions about independence. I mean, she's not independent. She is a bureaucrat whose job it

is to give advice, facts, and contacts and recommendations to the government. And you'd imagine that Jason Kenney and his health minister, Tyler Shandrow, would weigh any recommendations in the balance of what they believe is right politically, economically, socially, as well as in terms of public health. She's aware of that. She knows she's a canny operator in a political system. This is a different look for her. It's certainly turning a lot of the population against her in a way that the population was not in the past.

There's still some time left before the more controversial parts of this plan take effect. There's still some time left before the more controversial parts of this plan take effect. Given how much blowback there's been, do you foresee any changes to this plan? It's hard to say. Jason Kenney tends to like to be somebody who doesn't blink. He's fomented the protest movement in this case against him that didn't exist before in such an active, impassioned way, people demonstrating. I don't think he's going to buck to demonstrators, but if huge amounts of his own, the moderate side of his conservative party and others start saying, Jason, this is a problem, then we could see. But again, he tends not to be a guy who likes to look like he's reversing course.

Really interesting insight, Jason. Thank you so much for making time to be on the podcast. Great talking to you, Anthony. Active COVID-19 cases continue to go up in Alberta. As of Wednesday, they reached 2,282, the highest in the country ahead of British Columbia and Ontario. That's all for this week. Front Burner is brought to you by CBC News and CBC Podcasts. The show was produced this week by Elaine Chow, Imogen Burchard, Katie Toth, and Simi Bassi.

Our sound design was by Derek Vanderwyk and Mackenzie Cameron. Our music is by Joseph Chabison of Boombox Sound. And the executive producer of Front Burner is Nick McCabe-Locos. Jonathan Monpetit will be filling in for Jamie next week. Have a good weekend.