Premier Jason Kenney was back on camera yesterday afternoon to plead with Albertans to hasten to get their third shot of COVID-19 vaccine to blunt the fifth wave of the disease now barrelling into Alberta.
If we don’t, he grimly told a news conference theoretically called to announce that any Albertan over 18 may now book a third vaccine dose immediately if it’s been five months since their last one, the arrival of the Omicron variation of the virus means we’re in for it.
In other words, once again Mr. Kenney was pleading with Albertans to do the right thing and exercise some personal responsibility as the global coronavirus pandemic continues into another year – and we all know what folks say about doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
Doesn’t matter. While Mr. Kenney, Health Minister Jason Copping and Chief Medical Officer of Health Deena Hinshaw announced a few more restrictions that will take effect on Christmas Eve – no dancing or billiards in pubs and bars that remain open, and no taking off your mask to have a drink at an NHL game – there was no way the premier was going to take back his risky plan to allow unvaccinated folks to join indoor gatherings in private homes over the holiday.
He even trotted out one of his patented personal stories about an elderly lady of his acquaintance who had a really, really good medical reason not to get a vaccine, and how sad it would be for her to spend Christmas alone.
Mr. Kenney, apparently in all seriousness, went on to “appeal to all Albertans to reduce their number of contacts by half over the coming weeks.”
It may not have occurred to him that most of us are already keeping pretty well to ourselves, and those who now go to the bar seven nights a week probably aren’t going to be much safer if they’re only there 3.5 evenings – even if they don’t shoot pool or dance the fandango.
Said Mr. Copping: “I know Albertans are tired of the pandemic, but we need to take what we have learned from previous waves and urgently apply it to our current situation.”
It’s hard to argue with this sentiment, even if Mr. Copping’s boss is effectively doing just what he says we mustn’t.
Dr. Hinshaw answered reporters’ questions from a remote location that appeared to be either under water or in a Cold War era bomb shelter, grimly informing Albertans the Omicron variant is now dominant in the province.
All three participants in the news conference had the bilious and anxious look of people who know their best laid schemes have just gone south.
That said, Dr. Hinshaw’s soliloquy about how the pandemic has become “almost unbearable” sounded as if she were talking more about its impact on the government than on the poor folks who will end up in the ICU.
NDP Health Critic David Shepherd responded to the announcement by assailing the premier for “choosing to act last and act least.”
“Jason Kenney and his UCP government are gambling with the lives and livelihoods of Albertans by refusing to reverse their reckless decision to give unvaccinated Albertans their blessing to gather indoors,” Mr. Shepherd said in a short statement emailed to reporters. “Meanwhile, other provinces are going further to protect their citizens in the face of record-breaking case counts, west and east.”
MLA Thomas Dang resigns from NDP Caucus
Meanwhile, there was bad news for the NDP Opposition of a particularly unexpected sort.
Opposition Leader Rachel Notley called an unscheduled news conference yesterday to announce that Edmonton-South MLA Thomas Dang, the youngest and one of the most active MLAs in the Legislature, would be sitting as an Independent after RCMP officers executed a search warrant at his home.
“Our caucus has a longstanding policy that members under active police investigation will not sit in the caucus, and Thomas understands this,” Ms. Notley said.
Well, you can’t not do what you’ve demanded the government do with its own MLAs, I suppose, but judging by the weird circumstances of the police raid, which took place when Mr. Dang was away for a day of skiing, she would have been quite justified to encourage him not to resign from the caucus.
In a statement on his social media accounts, Mr. Dang said, “I believe this warrant was executed in relation to the vulnerabilities with the COVID-19 vaccination records on the Government of Alberta website.”
“In September a concern was raised with me as a Member of the Legislative Assembly about the security of the vaccination record system. I tested these concerns and found that a security flaw did exist,” he said. “I immediately notified Alberta Health with the relevant information so that the vulnerability could be corrected. It was resolved shortly thereafter.”
We’ll see how this pans out. Legislative Speaker Nathan Cooper, if he’s not too busy writing letters assailing COVID-19 restrictions, might want to keep an eye on this one. Mr. Dang’s account, at least, suggests that the RCMP may be on a fishing expedition that interferes with the prerogatives of the Legislature.
This Dang saga has desperate attention drawing headline written all over it.
The NDP are not acting in their, or his best Interest by accepting his resignation.
I have long suspected churches have more to do with this spread than bars but who can know? We long ago abandoned contact tracing and Deena Hinshaw is at this point as discredited as anyone in the UCP. Fire them all.
Off with their heads, as they used to say
The head honcho of the UCP and the UCP itself are gambling with people’s lives. Come January, we will see another nightmare, as Covid-19 cases spike upwards. You just can’t trust these pretend Conservatives and Reformers. As for NDP MLA, Thomas Dang, we will wait and see what the R.C.M.P investigation concludes. The head honcho of the UCP is still being investigated by the R.C.M.P for how he became the leader of that party. Let’s see what becomes of that.
Let’s see: the RCMP investigation into oil shill Premier K’s election is apparently going so slow that any wrongs will identified only when they have become irrelevant. In BC the RCMP are acting as thugs for the oil industry on unceeded first nations land in contravention to a Supreme Court ruling. The RCMP are arresting reporters covering that story. And now the RCMP have raided the home of an effective opposition MLA in Alberta. The only mystery here is why Premier K wants his own police force when he has one already. Now if he can just follow Harper’s example of stacking the Federal Courts with sympathizers in the Provincial system, then I can only say: Albertans are like the proverbial “frog in gradually heating water.”
KANG: You do raise some very good points. Albertans are going to be in hot water if they keep on supporting these pretend conservatives and Reformers that are the UCP party. The head honcho of the UCP wants to remove the R.C.M.P from Alberta, because they can’t investigate him for his shenanigans if they aren’t there. Don’t forget that the robocalls shenanigans in the CPC were done by none other than the head honcho of the UCP. Something is very fishy with the Thomas Dang affair. The UCP acolytes are hungry for revenge. Things don’t seem right here. It’s also a good way for the UCP to let their major shenanigans get brushed aside for a time. Thomas Dang seems like a good MLA. We will see what transpires here.
Looks like Jason Kenney decided not to blow off Alberta and have a stay-cation instead. He’s likely walled up inside the Sky Palace, plowing through his mountain of cough syrup. Leaving right now wouldn’t be a sound idea, anyway. Now that Brian Jean is trolling him, Kenney may feel that getting out of the province right now would cause a coup d’etat. (Kudatah, in Alberta Knuckle-Dragger slang.)
The on and off again barely restrictions surely must be getting on everyone’s nerves. The Best Christmas Ever has now become the “Slightly Tolerable but Okay Christmas Ever.” Besides, Kenney had more important things to do, like continuing his disinformation campaign about government guaranteeing public pensions. Nationalizing Alberta’s O & G industry with what little there is the pensions is going to be a hard slog for Kenney, since pretty much everyone has figured out when he’s lying. How do you know when Kenney is lying? He’s breathing.
The RCMP investigation over Thomas Dang’s concerns over the COVID vaccination record system is concerning — concerning in that Kenney and the UCP have been determined to implement a broken system since its implementation. Likely all this points to the insecurity surrounding users’ personal health records data, to be sure, but searching Dang’s own home while he’s away is just plain weird. Notley’s response is equally concerning, because it represents her often complained about inflexible mindset in regard to caucus members’ conduct. Notley should have refused Dang’s resignation pending more information. While Kenney goes to one extreme in regard to the conduct of his caucus, Notley takes it in another just as extreme direction, with barely a hint of thoughtful discretion. Trying not be like Kenney is one thing, but falling on your face while doing it isn’t very graceful either.
Seeing that omicron is spreading like wildfire among the vaccinated it really doesn’t matter anymore if you’re vaccinated. There’s no difference. By the sounds of it catching omicron won’t be the worst thing to happen other than a runny nose and you’ll come out of it with natural immunity that is better than those crappy vaccines that require you to get boosters.
It’s spreading like wildfire through the UNvaccinated population. With some breakthrough infections, that aren’t as severe in most cases due to being immunized. No one should listen to a single thing you just said.
With omicron being an upper airways infection (ie a common cold) hardly anybody is going to get seriously ill, vaccinated or not.
Yeah, again, no one should listen to you.
The concern is not you, it’s you in the aggregate. Once again for the folks in the back, we are trying to keep the healthcare system from
Collapsing. Additionally, YOU ARE WRONG. A small percentage of people will get / are getting very sick. In the aggregate this is A LOT OF PEOPLE.
This influx of people into our already strained healthcare system is literally killing people who don’t even have covid.
You sir, are the definition of hubris, and folks like you are starting to make the rest of us a little angry.
Are you angry because the vaccine doesn’t appear to be working as sold to us or just at anyone who questions big pharma’s narrative of more and more shots? Remember the products of operation warp speed were sold as sterilizing vaccines originally then the messaging changed to something to prevent serious infection. Even the WHO has come out and said that we can’t boost our way out of this. The encouraging numbers coming out of South Africa showing a peak and sharp decline in cases should be looked at. A more interesting number would be what level of antibodies are produced following an omicron infection. If the same long lasting natural immunity produced by a previous variant infection can be had by an omicron infection we will get closer to herd immunity. Doubling or tripling down on a risky treatment developed for the original spike protein seems foolish at this point.
The raid on Mr. Dang’s home sounds like a Ron DeSantis move. A little more than a year ago, Florida State troopers raided the home of a former state official who’d been fired for refusing to censor Covid data. She’s been since granted whistleblower protections by the Florida Office of Inspector General (no word of the fate of the Inspector General).
A secret, possibly illegal, raid on an MLA’s home well he was away. Does this remind anyone of anything?
I think the world is very fortunate, in one respect, Covid wasn’t as deadly as the Spanish flu. Will it wake people up, the world isn’t capable of dealing with a disease with a higher mortality. We have the expertise, but the problem is Davostocrats who care more for profits than lives. Directing their pocket politicians to keep borders and businesses open.
Today Dec. 22, 2021, New Zealand has 1653 cases of Covid. For the simple reason the Prime Minister emplaced strict pandemic regulations. It is one of the best places to be in a pandemic, it’s current ranking is at 4. Although Bloomberg rates it at 23, factoring in business losses. The US by contrast has the second highest death rate.
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/comparing-covid-how-new-zealand-stacks-up/
I wonder if it’s Martha the premier is referring to, poor Henry must have succumed to the flu, probably an anti-gaffer.
Jason Kenney is certainly sending mixed messages with regards to being vaccinated. In yesterday’s news conference he really emphasized the importance of getting vaccinated, but apparently not being vaccinated is no reason not to see the family for Christmas.
It’s hard to know whether this should be on JK’s playlist:
https://youtu.be/I_izvAbhExY
Or maybe this, since Brian May has Covid:
https://youtu.be/fJ9rUzIMcZQ
Dr. D. has probably taken the sensible route, heading into the basement at the Winchester until the zombie apocalypse blows over.
I found the raid on Mr. Dang’s home to be disturbing. It is a serious crime to access protected, personal information on a computer system without appropriate authorization. That said, the laws are written in such a way as to discourage honest people from reporting computer system vulnerabilities, lest they be punished with significant criminal sanctions. My bet is the RCMP are looking for the source of the Mr. Dangs’ tip and using the warrant the threat of criminal sanctions to squeeze him. I certainly hope not. Mr. Dang did a public service and followed sensible protocols to alert AHS to the vulnerability. It is the fault of the AHS, not the Mr. Dang or his tipster, that personal information risked unauthorized disclosure. Going after the people who revealed the vulnerability is wrong.
Phlogiston: This is exactly what I think is going on: A fishing expedition to find out what was on Mr. Dang’s computer. In this case, though, I think the Mounties have clearly overstepped their bounds, as badly written as the laws may be, by interfering with the exclusive prerogative of the Legislature. I am watching this situation with anticipation. DJC
Phlogiston: This is exactly what I think is going on: A fishing expedition to find out what was on Mr. Dang’s computer. In this case, though, I think the Mounties have clearly overstepped their bounds, as badly written as the laws may be, by interfering with the exclusive prerogative of the Legislature. I am watching this situation with anticipation. DJC
Being that Dang is a reportedly registered white hat, I think this story has some serious legs. Is the government using the FEDERAL POLICE to attack one of their most vocal critics ?!
Sure looks like it doesn’t it.
BC’s chief medical officer Bonnie Henry had to make a clarification early this morning after Dr Peter Lin rebuked her comment yesterday made during official announcement of new epidemic restrictions that everyone in BC (in her quiet monotone it sounded like ‘everyone in general, everywhere‘) will be exposed to Covid—which Dr Lin, a regular medical commentator on CBC Radio, took to mean that everyone will be infected by Covid, an attitude he unequivocally rejected.
Dr Henry responded soon after that she said “exposed to,” and didn’t mean to suggest that everyone exposed would get Covid if, of course, they protect themselves by following safety protocols which have become the norm (at least for most people) these past two years.
The following phone-in featured callers plainly frustrated or angry over the recent spate of official Covid protocol revisions to the numbers of guests allowed in homes during Christmastime, reimposed restrictions and closures of certain venues, seemingly conflicting medical points of view, &c, as the new Omicron variant spreads rapidly and threatens hospital capacity. While some callers lashed out at authorities’ handling of the converging ‘fifth wave’ and the predictable Thanksgiving-to-New-Year uptick—most pissed that gyms or bars are, or might be, closed again—, many were simply confused about details centred around Christmas gatherings, the most common qualifier being that, since ‘everybody’s been double—even triple—vaccinated, why all the revisions?’— which, they complained, are too sudden and too many despite the highly infectious Omicron rapidly spreading and headlining news around the world.
It’s as if the general population doesn’t get that vaccination is not meant to exempt one from protocols or allow resumption of customary intercourses we used to have pre-Covid. Rather they’re meant to preclude infected people from getting so sick they need hospitalization. Continuing reaction to third-shot boosters already recommended for months now suggests many people haven’t quite twigged to the fact that boosters will likely be required for the foreseeable precisely to this end because these vaccines wear off, there’s still a significant number of unvaccinated among us, millions around the world are infected— the vast majority of whom haven’t been vaccinated at all— and a steady stream of new variants, possibly more severe, will present via international and regional travel which, to obviate disruption of commerce, have never been entirely curtailed since the pandemic began.
Testing is good strategy, but I’m unsure which disappoints me more: their tactically bungled roll-outs or the psychologically distracting override Christmas has upon our compatriots‘ otherwise commendable attitude. Apparently, on our health authorities, too, who I think have exacerbated anger and confusion by handing kits out in political response to Yuletide disgruntlement rather than using them in better-focused, epidemiologically cogent fashion.
Certainly Dr Henry has expressed regret that people are using these Johnny-apple-seeded test-kits iiadvisably as well as mistakenly presuming vaccination precludes passing Covid to vulnerable individuals—even to loved ones whom they typical see during the Holiday Season. Once the darling of Covid response, it’s conspicuous indeed when Dr Henry has lately had to make retraction, excuse policy or admit that some of it is turning out a hash. Altogether it seems to me another turning point is afoot but, unfortunately, it’s mostly presumed the beginning of a happy ending to a story which has been tragic for many, extremely difficult for governments, but merely irritating for most.
Both fascinating and troubling—like a train wreck—is this annual phenomenon of Holiday Season blinkers: people keep trying to insert the narrative they want (‘with vaccines and testing Covid restrictions will soon be unnecessary and we can go back to how we used to live,’) into the epidemiological ‘narrative’ which hasn’t even reached mid-point yet, let alone —in screenwriting parlance—the second or third plot-point where the story turns definitively towards the ending. That point is where people generally acquiesce to keeping Covid variants at as low a level as needed to keep protocols as unrestrictive as possible. Probably—at this point in the ‘writing,’ anyway—that means limited mask-wearing, habitual hand-sanitizing, and prudent distancing in behavioural terms, and substantial infrastructural and economic accommodations. As residual reaction to third-shot boosters suggests, we haven’t got to the part of the Campbellesque ‘quest’ where the hero gets the thing chi needs to prevail against the odds stacked against chim. Like every narrative arc, even the best, like Dr Henry, struggles and stumbles, as it is for her and many other health officials, to broach the reality of annual (or even semiannual) boosters, regular (and regulated) testing, customary epidemic protocols, and a longer term policy of infrastructural change (ventilation, washability, renovations and new builds, &c). That story might not have been familiarized for everybody yet, but we are, hopefully, getting much closer.
But Jason Kenney? With his holy anti-vaxxer ass-kissing, I’m afraid my Alberta compatriots will never get there. Saving the bother to list his disgusting disingenuosities (it hardly matters his motive), better to simply say: everything he’s done about Covid from the start, from denial to begrudging crony-hedgery has presumed this whole thing will blow over and everybody but him and the yahoos with his lipstick ‘twixt their chap-straps are fools for having worried about it in the first place.
Short of imposing a real quarantine (which we never had) inside permanently closed borders (which will likely never happen), the objective remains maintaining hospital capacity. And K-Boy et al should know by now that isn’t a cast of Covid players exclusively, but rather includes thousands of citizens whose surgeries, some more urgent than others, have been postponed because of his give-a-shit attitude.
Kenney’s leadership is worthless.
Scotty: Alberta will get there. But not until we’ve gotten rid of the UCP. DJC
The global elites, the Bliderburgers, the Illuminati, Skull & Bones, and all the secret societies canceled their respective gabfests because of OMNICRON, but the UCP is going strong with their Christmas events.
Last night, one was found in Edmonton for 200, crammed into an Italian restaurant. Guidelines were followed? Sure, sure. There was one scheduled for tonight in Calgary, but it was canceled this morning once news of the Edmonton fest got out. The pics of Kaycee Madu piling into his lasagna were delightful. Kenney wasn’t there, so Madu gets the gears for this one. Since he’s so talented at failing upward, a significant promotion must be in the works. (God has blessed him with many gifts.)
Unfortunately, this is happening across Canada. The economy has gained equal status with keeping people alive and healthy. A proper quarantine was never attempted due to the aggressive Capitalist pushback from small-minded ideologues, proper conservative values would be the safeguarding of life.
National issues should be dealt with in Ottawa and not in backwater Provincial arenas nor even more petty fiefdoms of Municipal politics. Peace, order and good government with a sober use of the War Measures Act if necessary, but that would require moral fortitude on the part of our political masters of all stripes.
We lost the fight against Covid the minute we refused to enforce existing health and safety statutes, allowed people to harass frontline workers and verbally abuse and bully children simply following their parents command without arrest.
I am glad the greatest generation is almost no more, it would be impossible to look them in the eyes. For shame CANADA.
It seems to be the prime directive of the UCP – the bars must remain open, if at all possible. It seems an odd thing for a Premier who is supposedly fairly devout, so I assume not a heavy drinker. Perhaps he is somehow trying to echo Ralph.
The whole thing with Mr. Dang is a total disgrace. If AHS (or someone higher up) wants to go after him because he was trying to tell them and demonstrate the very basic flaws in their security, this totally explains why it and health care in Alberta is such a total mess. If I found out my privacy had been breached, I would be suing AHS for a huge amount of money as punitive damages. It is not like I have a choice with giving them private information, at least with a private business that is sloppy with security, a customer can stop dealing with them.
This whole sad thing shows AHS is more concerned about perception, damage control and probably politics than they are about the security and privacy of Albertans information.
The person in charge of AHS should be fired for this stupidity immediately.
My understanding now is that in some civilizations in the past pandemics burned themselves out when a level of equality was reached where the poorest and richest would interact with each other because the gap became that small. If this is true for us we’ve got to bridge the gap between the poorest children in Burundi and Somalia who get sold to rapists and billionaires who spend billions on eleven second joy rides to the edge of space. Even the most benevolent genius with empathy levels never experienced in a human before could not stop it from being devastatingly painful for multitudes and we get stuck with kenney. Sorry to end the year on such a depressing thought.
Ho, ho, ho, did Uncle Covid go?
https://calgary.citynews.ca/2021/12/22/alberta-ucp-party-covid/