Grilled by reporters about yesterday’s news the United Conservative Party Government ordered Alberta Health Services not to use the words “COVID-19” or “influenza” in its seasonal vaccination advertising, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith dodged, weaved and prevaricated, but didn’t outright deny the truth of the report.
The media caught up to Ms. Smith at a press conference after The Globe and Mail published its scoop that, “in addition to ordering AHS to remove references to specific vaccines, the government instructed the health authority to limit information on vaccine benefits and efficacy.”
The purpose of the news conference, ostensibly, was to talk about the government’s plan to spend $200-million over two years to try to increase Albertans’ access to family physicians – aided by funds from a barely acknowledged $1.06-billion, three-year funding agreement with Ottawa announced earlier in the day by Alberta Health Minister Adriana LaGrange and her federal counterpart, Mark Holland.
But reporters at the second newser, the only one attended by the premier, were clearly less interested in the primary care announcement than the UCP’s interference in AHS’s seasonal public heath advertising that surfaced thanks to the Globe’s freedom-of-information filings.
At turns defensive and defiant, Ms. Smith made the risible claim that naming no respiratory virus in AHS advertising to encourage people to get vaccinated was a reasonable response to the undeniable fact there are a lot of different viruses in circulation right now.
Anyway, she said, “it was in our press release that we mentioned that people should talk to their family doctor about it.” This point was repeated several times, whenever a journalist asked, But what about the advertising?
Plus, the premier added irrelevantly, “we’re also … spending almost the same amount of money this year on the campaign as we did last year.”
Of course, everyone in Alberta understands the real reason is that Ms. Smith owes the party’s militantly anti-vaccine Take Back Alberta faction for her job, and is not about to put it at risk by adopting sound public health measures even though COVID-19 and influenza both continue to spread.
So there’s no way Ms. Smith was about to permit AHS to make a clear recommendation that Albertans get vaccinated against COVID or the flu even though experts in epidemiology and advertising alike know that would help persuade people to be immunized.
“Our press release says eligible Albertans are able to book their appointment of influenza and COVID-19 vaccines at an AHS clinic or pharmacy,” the premier responded weakly.
In a CBC report, the broadcaster quoted University of Alberta public health professor James Talbot describing the government approach outlined in the Globe’s story as “not just outrageous, it’s idiotic.”
A reporter asked the premier: “Do you have a mandate not to mention COVID in any of your messaging?”
Ms. Smith responded again: “It’s right in our press release. … People need to make sure that their vaccinations are up to date, and they need to talk to their family doctor about it.”
And since the purpose of the news conference was supposedly to respond to the critical shortage of family doctors … well – who knows? – maybe someday you’ll be able to talk to a nurse practitioner about it.
Asked by a reporter if he thought it’s a problem Alberta is seeing the lowest influenza vaccination rates in a decade, Alberta Medical Association President Paul Parks – along for the ride to talk about the government’s primary care plans – responded by saying “it’s absolutely a problem and a concern.”
“Vaccines work. They really, truly work,” Dr. Parks asserted, as the premier stood by fidgeting. “Our hospitals are overflowing with sick people with all respiratory viruses, but influenza is one of the highest right now.”
Vaccination, he continued, “it’s protecting you, but it’s also protecting other people that are going to get sick, and protecting our health care system so we can take care of people. So I just strongly urge and use this opportunity that we just need more vaccination for sure.”
The premier jumped in at that point to say, “I’m not a doctor. So as I’ve said, everybody should talk to their family doctor about the choice that’s right for them. …”
The next question: “Why do you think people are more skeptical now than they have been in a decade?”
Ms. Smith’s response to that one: “I don’t know.”
There was a moment of silence, which is as good a place as any for us to stop transcribing. I mean, really …
Well, as NDP Health Critic David Shepherd observed: “‘Do your own research’ is not a public health strategy. It is the mark of a government that’s abandoned one of its core responsibilities to the people it was elected to serve.”
Presumably Ms. Smith will soon have to field a call about Dr. Parks from Take Back Alberta founder David Parker, who in the past has expressed the view that “The vaccine was a lie! It didn’t work!”
Soon after the news conference, Alberta Health Services published a news release urging Albertans this holiday season to “spread joy, not germs.”
That release started by encouraging Albertans to wash their hands and cover their noses with a tissue when they sneeze, but eventually got around to meekly mentioning that influenza and COVID vaccines are available free of charge.
On social media, this resulted in general hilarity and suggestions the release was drafted to counter the premier’s discomfort at the news conference.
It is my duty to inform readers, however, that anyone who has observed AHS communications in action understands it is unlikely the organization could produce and approve such a statement in several days, let alone a few minutes. The amusing timing, therefore, was most likely mere happenstance.
Also, no mention of masks. For heaven’s sake, it’s a respiratory virus, so wear a mask for shopping at least.
I have to say I don’t think I’ve even talked to my doctor about the covid vaccine, partly because I have not had many appointments the past few years. I just go and get vaccinated at the Co-op pharmacy and I presume my doctor can see it on my record if they check. I started getting the flu vaccine 18 years ago, so the covid one is no big deal.
Well said, Valerie. Everybody wants to ignore both Covid and the flu, but wishful thinking and blind luck won’t protect everyone. I still wear KN-95 masks when I’m shopping, especially in crowded stores—and ESPECIALLY now!
I got both the Covid and flu shots at the same time, as soon as both were available. I do this partly for me, mostly for my 93-year-old mother. She’s in long term care, and I don’t intend to be the guy who brings Covid into her home.
I’m glad you are taking such care for your mother.
My family were asked to get flu shots when my parents were in long term care. At the time people under 65 usually had to pay but we did not becuse of our parents. A few years later the shots were made free to all.
Before the pandemic my mother’s LTC were quite careful to quarantine sections if a resident got flu, allowing only one designated relative per resident to visit for a couple of weeks, and they had hand sanitizers all over the place and encourged visitors to use them. No masks that I recall.
I haven’t checked lately but during the first couple of pandemic years I think that LTC place lost only one resident to covid.
Perhaps the premier fears the wrath of her commander-in-chief at TBA. When you sell your soul, eventually you have to repay that debt with interest.
Yesterday reminded me that I once owned a coffee mug with the slogan, “Imbeciles of America”. I miss that mug. It would be nice to have a new one with a new slogan, “Imbeciles of Alberta”.
Can someone do a welfare check on this province?
Dunning and Kruger would have a field day with Alberta’s leader, David Parker.
As further proof that you’re right, Danielle has been talking up Alberta as THE destination for all of Canada’s “captured” CO2 sequestration–economic and technical problems be damned.
https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2023/12/22/Dump-All-Carbon-Emissions-Alberta/
Maybe she plans to inject the CO2 under the oil sands tailings ponds so the oil companies don’t have to pay to clean them up. Won’t that make the locals happy! (/heavy sarcasm)
As we approach Festivus, the grievances pile up and the fleeting post election honeymoon for the UCP comes to an end. It is also getting clearer the UCP is back to what it seems best at doing – mismanaging health care.
For all the Albertans who don’t have or can’t find a doctor, Smith’s advise to talk to their family doctor must seem particularly trite and glib. If there was an award for glibbest politician ever Smith would stand a good chance of winning.
Of course that glib advise allows Smith to avoid saying what she really thinks and so dodge the controversy that would come if she had the courage of her convictions. Somehow I think this will please no one, which Smith seems to have a track record of doing when she tries to please everyone.
She had a choice to make. Was she going to be a responsible Premier and promote good public health actions, or was she going to be the anti vax Queen? It seems she chose to sit on the fence.
I doubt those of us without a doctor will get one any time soon as Smith and the UCP continue to disrupt the health care system, so we are left to figure things out for ourselves. So that is what Smith is really saying, but that doesn’t sound quite as nice as her trite and gib but meaningless advise.
So will Danielle now endorse blood letting and faith healing, as she is not a M.D.?
Modern conservative parties seem to attract a lot of leeches.
“Why is it that people who know the least, know it the loudest?” –anonymous source
Question: What is the sound of one hand clapping?
Answer: ?
. . . followed by dead silence . . .
Question: What are the results/outcomes (immediate and long term) of the decisions made by outrageous idiots in positions of power?
And where certain like minded outrageous idiots continue to be ‘bamboozled by science, as opposed or contrasted to the sassy assumptions of being merely ‘blinded with science’ one assumes.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/former-british-prime-minister-boris-johnson-bamboozled-by-science-covid-19-inquiry-told-1.6652483
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V83JR2IoI8k
. . . more dead silence . . .
All the best to you and yours, David, and I look forward to a new year filled with revelations. Cheers!
The premier is not a doctor but she is an excellent prevaricator.
There’s no need to burden one’s family physician with this question. Just speak to a public health nurse, who can give exactly the same information, probably more accurately.
It’s interesting, though, that while,the Premier has repeatedly stated that her position on AHS is that its role should be narrowly constrained to acute care — meaning hospitals — the government’s announced new structure for health care in this province glaringly omits any discussion of where public health fits into the new system.
None of the four putative new “organizations” are focused on public health. So, once this system is fully operational, whither public immunization clinics, health inspectors of public facilities such as restaurants, newborn baby home visits, and communicable disease control, among the myriad other services AHS’ Population & Public Health portfolio offers?
I’ve known Danielle and her husband David for more than a dozen years. She’s afraid of needles. You will never see her roll up her sleeve and get a vaccination to set a good example for Albertans. Never!
You know her for a dozen years? You have my sympathy and why is her address still in your contact list?
Firstly, I wish you, yours, and like-minded readers of Alberta Politics a very happy holiday.
Glad to see you continue to shed light upon the insanity that is the UCP party of Alberta. Nonetheless, Smith et al. is firmly in power, so you will undoubtedly have much work to do in 2024!
We live in pivotal times, I hope that things work out for our children, well everyone.
People may well demonstrate that they choose democracy over anarchy, but we will have to fight for democracy and indeed that is what you, David, and some of your readers do on a regular basis. May our voices carry the day!
I guess Albertans have to learn the hard way how to deal with a government of lunatics.
The interesting thing to me is that our neighbours in BC with an NDP government just signed a contract with Telus to run an eating disorder program. Even social democrats are selling their souls to the private industry. I am sure it will not be fun when they see the results. Telus has become a predatorial company especially with what they now call Telus International which is anywhere in the world except in Canada and from where I was sent a box of some health related package that I refused at least twice on the phone trying to resolve some other issue with my internet account. None of the issues got resolved because they sent me the box anyway. It is excruciating to have to resolve any issue with them now. It is pathetic and they will be offering health related services?
We are fast becoming another banana Republic.
Carlos: As I have said repeatedly, ALL major Canadian political parties are neoliberal parties now. There is no Canadian Left. DJC
Which if we are behind honest, is a bit of an emerging crisis. One of the main reasons we are seeing “populist” governments elected across Europe is they are offering an alternative, at least rhetorically. Liberal and progressive parties remain too enamoured with their donor class to present any systemic change.
The real question is, how intentional was the push from organized money interests ? I would argue not only was it quite intentional, wrt to the Powell memo etc, but that they have been quite successful, there aren’t any institutions left to present any sort of peer challenge, all we have left is ourselves, and our solidarity.
Agreed! Tommy Douglas-style NDP is dead in Canada.
While I don’t deny there’s been some kind of Lorenz-like transformation in partisan positions —that is, the whole frame has, to put it colloquially, ‘pulled to the right’ of the communitarian spectrum—I must except the BC NDP which, in its second term of government, naturally looks as if it pulled to the right (because that’s what requisite fiscal responsibility looks like as opposed to loyal opposition hurling ideological invective from the Speaker’s left of the assembly); however, the BC NDP has, rest assured, been quite busy repairing the damage done to public enterprises by a real neoliberal party—I would say, “neo-right”— which for 16 years in power did its best to destroy them. For example, even after the BC Liberals (a neo-right party if there ever was one) gutted ICBC, the public auto insurer, the NDP didn’t flinch from rescuing this overtly ‘social-democratic’ enterprise almost the instant it toppled the corrupt BC Liberal regime in 2017. It was painful and of course controversial, but British Columbians’ insurance rates were sharply reduced and we still have a publicly-owned auto-insurer.
A number of other polices aim at repairing BC Liberals’ neo-right damage. For example, localized home-care societies have been rationalized to pay workers better and guarantee 8-hour days instead of anywhere between 2- and 12-hour days. Which party should be called “the workers’ party”?
True, the biggest complaint has been that the NDP hasn’t moved fast enough, but that says more about the depth of perfidy the previous government had plumbed: it takes time to undo what was intended to be irreversible sabotage of public enterprise but, rest assured, the pull is back to the left, wherever that is.
But of course we’re used to caterwauling from our brothers and sisters of the leftest faction (this is actually the steadfast tradition so, plus ça change) —the ones who turfed one of the most successful federal NDP leaders for the supposed ‘betrayal’ of their camouflaged thin skins by running on a balanced budget in the 2015 campaign. O! —the humanity!!
The real problem is not what the partisan spectrum has become but, rather, what one of those positions no longer is: the nominal conservative right has almost completed a process of un-becoming that is indeed most unbecoming.
If I were a comedian I could probably make something of: when there’s noting left it’s all right. But, joking aside, the neoliberalism of globalization has virtually destroyed centre-right conservatism so that, in this world of mounting existential challenges, voters will have to choose between far-right neolibertarianism and moderate government which, last I checked, is on the left side of centre.
One of the issues with fiscal responsibility and NDP governments is that when they talk about balancing budgets or running deficits, they rarely have the intestinal fortitude to take a long, hard look at the revenue side of the equation.
There are many potential revenue sources that more progressive governments could access to pay for programmes and services that truly help the people, like Pharmacare, but they are either too timid in the face of the right-wing commentariat lighting its collective hair on fire, or simply ineffective communicators — in which category I have to reluctantly assign the 2023 Alberta NDP campaign, who’s feeble proposal to gently raise corporate tax rates found no traction with voters.
From wealth, inheritance and excess profits taxes, to lifting the capital gains exemption on unearned investment income from investments held outside of an RRSP or TFSA, to ending subsidies to the already cash-rich fossil fuel industry, there are many ways that a left-leaning government could pay for services that help people, make progress on income and wealth inequality, and balance the budget, all at the same time.
But NDP governments have traditionally bought into the notion that the only path to fiscal responsibility is cuts to programmes and services. This is the path to failure, since you can’t out-conservative the conservatives.
How right you are.
Yes I agree and it is not just now. The NDP has been neo-liberal for as long as I know it.
Is it really incompetence and idiocy though? What if it’s really corruption masquerading as incompetence?
Daffy kills. Best wishes David!
CBC reports that only 22% of us here in Oilberduh (emphasis on “DUH”) bothered to get the flu shot this year. I haven’t seen a number for Covid-19 boosters. Then there’s RSV, a relatively mild disease among young kids and old folks—a vaccine is available. How many takers? (Shrug….)
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/danielle-smith-globe-and-mail-vaccines-adriana-lagrange-1.7067051
More good news on the vaccination file. Whooping cough, officially “pertussis,” a bacterial infection, is on the rise this year. 831 confirmed cases with a month to go makes 2023 the second-worst year in the last decade. There’s a vaccine. How many parents are taking their kids to get it? “In many places in Alberta, we are seeing childhood vaccine numbers that are in the 30 and 40 per cent range. [That’s] far below what is needed to prevent the spread.”
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/whooping-cough-pertussis-alberta-1.7065298
Am I the only one who thinks Albertans are willfully stupid about science, medicine and health?
If you look at the physical distribution of vaccine uptake in Alberta, you will find that the lowest uptake, even for children, is among the religious, mostly in southern Alberta. These are not stupid people; they are people whose intellect has been infected with superstition and live in a “Demon Haunted World.”
There is a sub-set of the anti-vaccine set who are leftists suspicious of big pharma. Who can blame them after the synthetic opioid mess and the fact big pharma has essentially abandoned research into new antibiotics in favour of medications with more long-term profitability like blood pressure medications? Commercialism degrades and contaminates everything.
Many thanks to our host for his diligence and this blog’s correspondents who often point out interesting things and remind me humane and decent people don’t just live in my community, but are the norm, rather than the exception, in spite of the results of the last Alberta election.
Two things we can take to the bank. Number 1, we will never see Paul Parks invited to speak at a presser again. Number 2, if an election were held tomorrow the UCP and Smith would be re-elected. Smith is just getting warmed up and that ought to scare the living daylights out of every rational thinking individual. Unfortunately the rational thinkers are outnumbered in this province.
Health care by Smith??????
This is why some politicians are very dangerous. Wonder what voters will say when illnesses and deaths increase due to a lack of people going for vacanations.
On the other hand, if more people become ill, when she tries to privitize health care, she’ll have something to sell which will make some private companies a lot more money.
One of the reasons people live longer these days is there are vaccines for a lot of diseases which used to kill us. I’m old enough to remember when polio could not only leave you in a wheel chair, it could kill you.
In B.C. you receive a text to remind you its time to get your next covid shot. Works wonderfully well. When you’ve had the shot another text advises your records have been up dated and life goes on.
So much for governing for ALL Albertans.
This is another epic disaster in the making. TBA is pulling the strings of the UCP.
It’ll be interesting to see the economic, social, and political effects of the massive population growth that is happening right now in Alberta due to the economic situation (Read: price of oil). Will this mean that Canadians will bring their political positions/ideologies from other parts of the country or will they adapt to more conservative Alberta (actually less conservative, since I left in the early ’90s). If the former, I would expect a fairly even mix of conservatives, liberals, and social dems/greens (and the various combos). This could spell trouble for the reigning UCP, since it will further dilute their power on the ground. It happened in previous boom times; when my family moved to Edmonton in ’69, things were good and lots of people were coming to the province. Two years later, they booted out Social Credit for the much more centrist PCs (who, btw, never had a problem with vaccines, as far as I can remember). It will be interesting to see what happens next election.
Expat: This has already happened. It is a big part of the reason the NDP won in 2015, and it is a big part of the reason the NDP is no longer a marginal party of two to four members. But the impact of such changes are not immediate. Domestic and foreign immigrants alike tend to support the government in a place to which they have moved as long as the favourable conditions that brought them here continue. DJC
Am I the only one cheering on for a massive cull in Alberta? You bet I am.
Alberta deserves this stupidity. They were warned thousands of times, but to no avail; they want to own PMJT 24/7, no matter how much self-harm is done.
Now that vaccinations, seemingly of every kind, are now a dirty secret in Alberta, the notion of the province becoming a backwater is more real than ever. Civilization left Alberta some years ago, and soon there will be nothing left of anything even resembling humanity.
Of course, I don’t mind one bit. It’s better that the stupidest people alive wipe themselves out — less work and concern for others.
Massive cull???
What about all the little kids who would die? They don’t get to vote, they didn’t do anything wrong.
Ah, the misfortune of living in UCP Alberta, everyone is a victim and guilty. Get used to it
The late Alan Fotheringham, Southampton Press columnist, famously claimed Alberta never went through civilization. I often think this is likely true.
I’m noticing there is a certain unrepentant covid troll is missing from this post.
I’m taking at least partial credit. Happy holidays from the Little Bird everyone, peace and goodwill to you and yours in the new year.
I’m not going to use the language I would normally for this kind of talk but I will say I am extremely tired of this rhetoric, and if you truly think that albertans are the stupidest people alive ; who deserve death for their ignorance, you may consider what you’re doing to be a bit of projection.
For those in the back; people who vote, a SLIM majority in this province, vote their material interests. People who can’t see that maybe aren’t as smart as they think they are.
Merry goddamn Christmas
Knowing how swamped our doctors are why would you suggest to make it even worse, but that’s what you get from a fool who can’t even get things right herself. You would expect your premier to be smart enough to advise people to get vaccinated like we have seen in the past, but not this fool.
Just an aside.. Can anyone please, give Adriana a box to stand on? On another note? Happy Holidays! Excellent reportage, accompanied by the fine wine of me betters! PS Dani needs some worry balls! https://youtu.be/hIKQkJz-C5k?t=47
POGO— me thinks ,she would probably use one, but then I’m sure Parker would get his knickers in a knot, comparing her to Chrystia….and if I could view footage of Dani’s hands during the presser I’d be looking for her twiddling her thumbs. She looks bored, and according to the year end interview, definitely not worried—she was given a “mandate”; which IMHO, means that she thinks she can do whatever she wants.
Cheers, and I’m raising a glass of my favorite red wine, and wishing you a East Coast Xmas music standard– “Grandma got run over……”
lol
Happy Holidays!!
And not many (none?) mentions of the huge federal contribution to Alberta’s coffers the other day. Why the Feds don’t make a huge ad buy is beyond me. The right wing AB press isn’t going to sing their praises.
Lefty: The news release mentions it in passing and the earlier news conference in Calgary had federal and provincial participation. But the UCP did its best to downplay the $1B federal contribution and, as far as I know, no one said thanks. Still, it’s remarkable to watch how the UCP tone switches, reasonably positive one day, hysterically angry the next, depending on the issue. DJC
Hello DJC and fellow commenters,
I hope everyone has a nice Christmas and has some holidays, too. The requirement to omit the names of the illnesses on the AHS vaccine advertising, presumably on the order of Danielle Smith, is simply dangerous to the health of everyone here as well as those who are in Alberta over the holiday season. This would be a prefect scenario for spreading respiratory disease to other parts of Canada.
The pertussis situation is extremely concerning, too, and I believe the large number of cases is primarily the result of lower vaccination rates. After all, pertussis is part of the common schedule of vaccinations of infants/young children and has been for a long time.
Hello Gerry Mac GP,
That is a very important point about there being no apparent ‘”home” for public health among the 4 divisions that Danielle Smith has listed for health care in Alberta. I guess that I am so accustomed to there being a place for public health, both in Ontario and here, that it didn’t occur to me that it could be left out. Itis frightening that this is, almost certainly, intentional on the part of Daneielle Smith.
As I have mentioned, perhaps to the point of boredom of other commenters, that the much reduced percentage fatalities of residents of Nova Scotia, particularly Halifax, during the flu epidemic of 1914-18 was due to public health decisions and precautions. Public health now includes vaccines which, as e a f points out, prevent many diseases which previously caused serious illness, long-term and permanent disability, and death.
But do remember, if a person dies of pneumonia, COVID, Cancer, drug overdoses etc. with out treatment of any kind it is cheaper. Perhaps this is what the UCP are up to. Dead people require no services. And also it’s a fine conservative/darwinian position survival of the fittest.
Just to repeat, no one needs to talk to their doctor about getting the covid vaccine unless they have special circumstances, allergies, etc.
You don’t need a prescription, just go to a pharmacy.
https://nitter.net/UbakaOgbogu/status/1738421733722644848#m
That phrase about vaccines being between you and your doctor is lifted from abortion arguments, where women needed to get politicians to stop trying to control them. Vaccines are a matter of public health where individual choices can put the whole community at risk.
As we watch Alberta descend the dark ladder, there might be some consolation in the fact that everyone, no matter cher partisan leanings, occasionally needs medical help—and that even goes for TBA anti-vaxxers who will take up very dear space in Smitherined hospitals whenever they get sick enough to realize they might die—either of respiratory diseases they could have ameliorated by vaccination or of any number of other serious ailments for which treatment is critically delayed because of said unnecessary occupation of hospital beds.
It’s the same principle as that which made physicians’ colleges abandon their ulteriorly-motivated “crackdown” on opioid prescription (in a bid to dodge culpability for the illegally-made fentanyl epidemic): since the need for pain relief is identical for sufferers no matter their station in life, it was inevitable this disingenuous (and, as it turned out, completely ineffective) crackdown would raise visceral objection from important and influential people who needed pain relief or had loved ones who did. The BC crackdown lasted two years before the College was forced to rescind it. Meanwhile, it had absolutely zero salutary effect on the illegally-made fentanyl overdose epidemic which, even now, several years into the epidemic kills about six British Columbians every single day.
Danielle Smithers is 100% far-right ideologue and zero percent politician operating under the principles of Dunning-Krueger and direction of the unprincipled TBA faction of the UCP. She might, on the basis of wealth and ability to pay higher healthcare costs, imagine important, influential people supporting her dismantling of public healthcare in Alberta, but it is not to suppose all important and influential people are without ethical scruple who will ignore the plights of less-important, less-influential citizens who will be hurt by the cruel prescriptions of Alberta’s very own Mr Burns.
And what does Danielle know of politics? “Smithers, release the hounds.”
What on earth was the Premier wrestling with in her mouth while Dr. Parks was speaking? So many metaphors come to mind, so little time to analyze the body language before the next show.
What do you expect from someone who promoted hydroxychloroquine as a cure of covid for weeks on her radio talk show.
It is bad enough that Danielle Smith is a ‘wing nut’. Much worse, she is a ‘wing nut’ Premier who is appears to be under the control/influence of the Take Back Alberta Group.
Not just covid or influeneza. Alberta is entering one of the largest outbreaks of whooping cough. Other outbreaks will follow as parents of infants refuse even the most basic of infant vaccinations.
If there is an outbreak of whooping cough in Alberta and children have not been vaccinated for it, there will be a lot of dead children. Prior to the “invention” of a whooping cough vaccine in the early 1940s, six thousand children a year died in the USA from whooping cough. That was more than children dying of scarlet fever, polio, etc.
Babies who die from whooping cough actually can appear to have died from shaken baby syndrome. That is how bad the coughing can become. we charge people who cause babies to have shaken baby sydrome, you do wonder why its o.k. then for parents to not vaccinate babies who look like they died from shaken baby sydrome when they die. To the religious nutbars, that is not god’s will. Its parental ignorance along with stupid politicians.
If people haven’t seen a baby/toddler with whooping cough, you’re lucky.