On Friday, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney announced that he plans to ease restrictions just in time for the holidays — tacitly admitting there’s no COVID emergency in Alberta.
“I’ll be gathering with three family members, we’re all fully vaccinated, come from three households, only four people. But we wouldn’t be able to do that based on the current rules,” Kenney explained Friday.
Kenney says that his decision to relax restrictions comes as ICU admissions across the province shrink, with Alberta seeing only 70 COVID patients on Wednesday.
He said the new goal should be to reach 173 ICU admissions, whereas the province currently has 183.
“That number is important because that allows us to go to 100 per cent of surgical capacity. We no longer have to set aside beds for COVID patients, for example,” he continued.
In other words, there’s no COVID emergency in Alberta.
Kenney says the changes to restrictions will be a “modest, common-sense relaxation.” He is expected to clarify what this means on Tuesday.
All of this sounds great, but Kenney didn’t mention anything about fully returning to normal any time soon. Indeed, he went so far as to say there’ll be a fifth wave of COVID at some point that will put a strain on health care; thus, out of fear, Albertans just can’t go back to normal.
“I don’t want to create a situation where we have millions of Albertans violating the rules when we’re not in a current emergency situation,” Kenney said.
“We do expect there will be future waves. There will be a fifth wave at some point.”
With this in mind, Kenney claims that he won’t allow Alberta to become a totalitarian police state, singling out Australia as an example not to follow.
“We’re not a police state. Unlike Australia and other places, we are not going to put a cop on every corner to check people’s papers,” he said.
