Funny how people only see what they want to see. Rural areas didn't have the number of seed cases that led to horrible outbreaks in New York and Italy, and the resulting paucity of cases convinced them that all of the mitigations were tyrannical overreach in service of a great hoax. Alberta decided to aggressively re-open based on a favorable interpretation of data on the Delta outbreak in the UK, neglecting differences in vaccination rate, prior infections, and other mitigations in place. There are fair arguments to be made regarding risk tolerance, and there's a lot of people and commentators who I feel go way too far in terms of trying to minimize risk (the whole COVID zero crowd, for example.) Still, it seems like the other side of the equation is often based on an ignorance of the risk rather than an acceptance of the risk.
Ms. Gerson, I wonder if you would consider a future column addressing another element of Alberta's crisis: a sore lack of ICU capacity. Alberta has about half the population of New York City, and Alberta has about 286 ICU beds. Two hundred of those beds now have Covid patients in them.
Before the pandemic New York City had about 1600 ICU beds, which it increased to 3500 almost immediately. At peak pandemic (April 2020), about 3200 Covid patients in New York were in the ICU. On a per capita basis, that's roughly eight times the number of Covid patients currently in Alberta ICUs.
To me it seems odd that we're talking about Covid's pressure on the health care system entirely in terms of the demand side, i.e. how many sick people there are, and ignoring the supply side. The conversation presumes that the ICU capacity of the province was handed down on stone tablets from God. Maybe Alberta needs to accept that it will permanently need to increase the number of ICU beds (and increase taxes) to deal with endemic Covid.
My understanding is that this lack of ICU capacity is a Canada-wide problem.
Yes, and yes it's a Canada-wide problem. We run highly efficient healthcare systems that appear to have no ability to cope with a statistically nominal surge in need. I believe we've made this point in previous posts and dispatches.
That said, it is what it is. We can't fix that problem in six days, weeks, or months.
Very good. It won't do The Line much good, because I have very few readers, but today's pandemic blog post, http://brander.ca/c19/#theline , does what it can to encourage subscriptions.
Jen's post was well done, and the headline cracked me up enought to attempt a political cartoon, bizarre because I utterly lack, not only drawing talent, but any real ability with computer graphics tools. Still, the pun just demanded to be emitted (like a large burp does).
Keep writing, I'll check out your blog every once in awhile :) Your political cartoon, while not able to compare to those of Hannah Höch was inadvertently Dadist.
Another beauty by Gerson. Bang on. Not until all the petulant adults refusing vaccination get over them selves can we move on from this. OR eventually we will be left with no choice to let the virus run through and reserve hospital beds for the vaccinated only, that sure would change things in a hurry.
Good article and good commentary as well. I know that I begun to see the situation as endemic in Alberta and it changed my perspective of what I thought was needed to be done, but I also see it could have been a blinder to a few significant Alberta-specific realities.
I do think the gov't, when they look to other nations and base some things on their situations, has come to some good conclusions and I think some things will show they were generally correct. I preferred these predictions or models versus what I think some oppositional Albertan thinkers were suggesting (mayors, dippers and other ideologues). Could be another set of blinders, I just do not like their ghoulish behaviour and don't want to credit them in the least. Deaths that occur between when they said "do things my way" and when these measures do take place should not get Westboro'd.
As stated by George, it could have looked like Britain and it probably will look like Israel in weeks or months, just that there were a lot of populations not affected earlier to get herd immunity or lessen transmission chains. There is a finite time for these vaccines' efficacy.
Just as I was enjoying the open summer, I guess I didn't factor in the chance of businesses being completely open. It's likely there wasn't as much scrutiny with symptomatic staff, but this goes with an Alberta problem. Speculation on my part but harvest and the very time-sensitive aspect of veggie processing is going to bring a lot of people together and it does have an "all hands on deck" type of mentality, the work needs to get done yesterday! And because these things are occurring in locations where two or three people in ICU mean they're at or near capacity in towns probably means that's a big factor. Alberta will always have only a dozen hubs of meaningful capacity and ability; it's why we have helicopters in the sky saving people's lives.
I guess I'm lamenting the gov't falling back on okay protocols and acquiescing to the passport vs some that could involve a bit of creativity but also stones to pull off.
Apologies if this point has been made already and admittedly simplistic but ... as a society it seems we have gone from the values of Aesop's fable The Ant and the Grasshopper to the Bizarro world of the Ant getting the vaccine, socially distancing, masking and taking care of him/herself and the community around them while the Grasshopper parties it up, avoids the vaccine to parasitically benefit from the broader immunity of the community and not only ignores distancing and masking requirements but instead protests and demands that any such restrictions (that they aren't observing anyway) be lifted. Later when Grasshopper gets a bad case of Covid he/she gets admitted to hospital with the other Grasshoppers and takes up all the available beds while Ant, who has been wait for cancer surgery or other critical treatment for months and months and months is once again "deferred".
Covid cases are going to rise and fall, in addition to adopting a temporary vaccine passport restricting the risk of unvaccinated people imposed when we see a wave coming and reducing their risk of getting seriously ill lets adopt a Triage Protocol that deems an un-vaccinated person as having opted out of health care wrt to developing a case of Covid - take those cases out of the system and it is no longer overstressed. If a bed is available for Grasshopper they can have it, but they can also pay for it.
The evidence is crystal clear that lockdowns don't work. He knows it full well, but he never had the guts to say it, because it would have meant he was wrong with lockdowns earlier on. Now he is hoist by his own petard. Serves him right.
Of course, vaccine passports don't work either, because vaccinated people transmit Covid quite well - so this "break the chains of transmission" comment is pure nonsense.
The only right answer is to not lock down and not discriminate. The media and the opposition will whine, and the public, at the behest of the medial, will complain too, but in a month their problem will be over.
Kenney has a lot going for him, but sadly not enough courage.
Kenny is his own worst enemy. He works hard, is on top of issues, communicates well and knows how to play politics. His flaws are taking on too much at once, pointless aggression and poor judgement of risk. For example, Alberta absolutely needs to reduce health and education spending closer to the levels or other provinces. Rather than take that on as his first task in 2019, Kenney picked fights with the Feds and other provinces. He dragged out contract negotiations with doctors and nurses. He should have imposed new contracts as first priority item and dine so quickly.
Respectfully Mark I disagree with two of your points. In my view:
1. lockdowns/restrictions do work, we saw that quite clearly in the third and earlier waves. they are a poor long term solution though for many reasons and should be used only when necessary.
2. vaccines have one potential and one proven benefit - they appear to work to reduce (to some degree) transmissibility and do work significantly to reduce the number of severe covid cases. We are at a point where case numbers should not matter anymore, just the number of cases that end up in hospital and that is where the vaccines do their job, albeit imperfectly. The percentage of vaccinated to unvaccinated covid cases that are in hospital tell the story.
I agree with what you say about vaccine efficacy. Bear in mind that the vast majority of eligible people are already vaccinated. This means that people's risk of being exposed to the virus comes from vaccinated people - they are somewhat less likely to have it, but there are way more of them. This means that segregating the unvaccinated is not effective.
On lockdowns, I think that you are not taking account multi-jurisdictional studies (US states, EU countries). Going on a purely chronological basis in one jurisdiction (we had a lockdown, cases went down) is very unreliable, as cases go up and down for many reasons, seasonality most among them.
Both good points. The new passport regime may only be intended as a stick/carrot to drive up vaccination numbers vs actually preventing transmission to and serious illness in unvaccinated people. While I personally accept that exchange on my personal liberty (easy for me as I am vaccinated and believe in it) I appreciate why this offends others and, at the least, responsible government should require being honest about what is being done and why.
Very true. I am also concerned that, if it is simply a way of forcing people to get vaccinated, choosing this particular way exacerbates fear in the vaccinated (and skepticism in the unvaccinated) and builds division and hatred among Canadians. Other moderately coercive measures, eg a simple tax on the unvaccinated (or a rebate for the vaccinated, which amounts to the same thing), while still objectionable to me, would be far less dangerous.
Of course, I think division and hatred is a feature, not a bug, for politicians. When people realize that, given relative ineffectiveness of vaccines at blocking transmission/infection, most people, vaccinated or not, will get Covid over the next year or two, many of them will be very very frightened and angry, and looking for a scapegoat. Politicians would rather that be the unvaccinated than themselves.
This situation is an indictment on the medical establishment and ultimately socialized medicine as much as on Jason Kenney. Kenney is a liability for the conservative movement in Canada, true, and he does need to take a walk in the snow, but this pandemic has shown us all how fragile and brittle a socialized health care system can be.
Say what you will about the US and even Asia and Europe, but their mixed public/private systems responded much more effectively and were much more resilient than the state run, social justice obsessed Canadian system.
That doesn't even count the fact it was the counties where health care is the most responsive to people's needs which developed and deployed vaccines. US, Germany and even Russia surpassed Canada.
Canadians need to do a post mortem after this pandemic and decide if they want a system that slowly is bankrupting Canadians while delivering a mediocre but socially fair system, or if we want a system that actually works buy might hurt the feelings of some people.
While a purely political assessment of a political cowboy like Kenney is doubtlessly appropriate, the fact is Kenney will not be alone in paying the price for his risky partisan bet. The only price Kenney likely pays is damage to his political career. The price paid by others, like patients and healthcare workers, will likely be much, much higher.
If Kenney were simply quarterbacking a Grey Cup team and the spectators were assessing the plays called where the only loss is a bit of pride on the losing side of players and fans, that's one thing. However, if spectators get sick and die as a result of plays called on the field by the risk-taking quarterback, then that's another league of metaphors altogether.
Jason Kenney is like Dr. Frankenstein. The monster he created is going to destroy him. That monster is the UCP party, his own creation. A populist party led by a decidely non populist leader. A recipe for disaster.
If he doesn't placate the anti-mask, anti-vax, wing of the party he will be out or the party will split. I shudder to think who would replace him, who would be acceptable to the anti vaxers?
We are in for a rough fall and winter in Alberta. We will never convince enough people to get vaccinated, and it may be too late anyway. Our hospital system can't cope with the numbers and the UCP has been making war on the health care workers, for the last two years. If you are going to fight with the doctors and nurses, at least wait until the pandemic is over.
Although I was never a Kenney fan, I thought at least he was competent. I was wrong. Again.
In each of the first 3 waves, modest restrictions would have crushed numbers to single digits if they were left in place for another 3-4 weeks. Not lockdowns. Kenney refused to learn that lesson as well as he and Hinshaw not admitting the predominant airborne nature of the coronavirus, and a couple of hundred million dollarsmaximum would have made schools much safer. This is on their hubris and lack of humility, so that a lot of Albertans would have paid a heavy price. And yes there were a lot of reputable experts who brought this up before multiple waves.
Those choosing to be irresponsible get to face the consequences of less freedom to move about with the no vaccine passport vaccine passport. Freedom carries responsibility with it. And no, I do not think the irresponsible should not be treated if they are sick. Health care workers have a moral and ethical obligation to treat all who need it, even the irresponsible. Even though we may not like it.
Kenney will pay the price for this, as will hinshaw. The timing is in question at this time.
What would that have solved other than resetting the timer? Covid zero is a fantasy. Restrictions drive down cases until they lift and then cases climb again. Rinse, repeat. During the first three waves, an argument could be made that restrictions contained spread until vaccines became available. Vaccines are highly effective and nothing better is on the horizon. Everyone is going to get Covid. As Jen pointed out, restrictions may prevent overloading the healthcare system, but at the cost of prolonging the pandemic.
Re: kenny being screwed... Does it really matter any more ? Politics seems to be way more tribal and identity based (as in, my identity is tied to my political party) these days. You are gonna vote for your team no matter what. How much movement is there really between parties, ? my gut tells me less and less.
Funny how people only see what they want to see. Rural areas didn't have the number of seed cases that led to horrible outbreaks in New York and Italy, and the resulting paucity of cases convinced them that all of the mitigations were tyrannical overreach in service of a great hoax. Alberta decided to aggressively re-open based on a favorable interpretation of data on the Delta outbreak in the UK, neglecting differences in vaccination rate, prior infections, and other mitigations in place. There are fair arguments to be made regarding risk tolerance, and there's a lot of people and commentators who I feel go way too far in terms of trying to minimize risk (the whole COVID zero crowd, for example.) Still, it seems like the other side of the equation is often based on an ignorance of the risk rather than an acceptance of the risk.
Ms. Gerson, I wonder if you would consider a future column addressing another element of Alberta's crisis: a sore lack of ICU capacity. Alberta has about half the population of New York City, and Alberta has about 286 ICU beds. Two hundred of those beds now have Covid patients in them.
Before the pandemic New York City had about 1600 ICU beds, which it increased to 3500 almost immediately. At peak pandemic (April 2020), about 3200 Covid patients in New York were in the ICU. On a per capita basis, that's roughly eight times the number of Covid patients currently in Alberta ICUs.
To me it seems odd that we're talking about Covid's pressure on the health care system entirely in terms of the demand side, i.e. how many sick people there are, and ignoring the supply side. The conversation presumes that the ICU capacity of the province was handed down on stone tablets from God. Maybe Alberta needs to accept that it will permanently need to increase the number of ICU beds (and increase taxes) to deal with endemic Covid.
My understanding is that this lack of ICU capacity is a Canada-wide problem.
Yes, and yes it's a Canada-wide problem. We run highly efficient healthcare systems that appear to have no ability to cope with a statistically nominal surge in need. I believe we've made this point in previous posts and dispatches.
That said, it is what it is. We can't fix that problem in six days, weeks, or months.
I will have catch up on my "The Line" reading so I'm not making a point in the comments you've already made. :)
Number of beds means nothing without the trained health care professional.
Very true. I just drove by my ER here in Nova Scotia. It's 4 pm, and it's CLOSED. No doctor available today, I guess.
Jen's column could be summarized by the line from the 1992 movie A Few Good Men: "You want the truth? You can't handle the truth".
I can't handle the truth that the NDP will likely win the next election.
been waiting for this column all week
Very good. It won't do The Line much good, because I have very few readers, but today's pandemic blog post, http://brander.ca/c19/#theline , does what it can to encourage subscriptions.
Jen's post was well done, and the headline cracked me up enought to attempt a political cartoon, bizarre because I utterly lack, not only drawing talent, but any real ability with computer graphics tools. Still, the pun just demanded to be emitted (like a large burp does).
Keep writing, I'll check out your blog every once in awhile :) Your political cartoon, while not able to compare to those of Hannah Höch was inadvertently Dadist.
Thanks. Very, very inadvertently. Like the way a man who's just eaten a pizza and become nauseated, "inadvertently creates a Jackson Pollock."
Another beauty by Gerson. Bang on. Not until all the petulant adults refusing vaccination get over them selves can we move on from this. OR eventually we will be left with no choice to let the virus run through and reserve hospital beds for the vaccinated only, that sure would change things in a hurry.
Yup. That would appear to be the case.
Good article and good commentary as well. I know that I begun to see the situation as endemic in Alberta and it changed my perspective of what I thought was needed to be done, but I also see it could have been a blinder to a few significant Alberta-specific realities.
I do think the gov't, when they look to other nations and base some things on their situations, has come to some good conclusions and I think some things will show they were generally correct. I preferred these predictions or models versus what I think some oppositional Albertan thinkers were suggesting (mayors, dippers and other ideologues). Could be another set of blinders, I just do not like their ghoulish behaviour and don't want to credit them in the least. Deaths that occur between when they said "do things my way" and when these measures do take place should not get Westboro'd.
As stated by George, it could have looked like Britain and it probably will look like Israel in weeks or months, just that there were a lot of populations not affected earlier to get herd immunity or lessen transmission chains. There is a finite time for these vaccines' efficacy.
Just as I was enjoying the open summer, I guess I didn't factor in the chance of businesses being completely open. It's likely there wasn't as much scrutiny with symptomatic staff, but this goes with an Alberta problem. Speculation on my part but harvest and the very time-sensitive aspect of veggie processing is going to bring a lot of people together and it does have an "all hands on deck" type of mentality, the work needs to get done yesterday! And because these things are occurring in locations where two or three people in ICU mean they're at or near capacity in towns probably means that's a big factor. Alberta will always have only a dozen hubs of meaningful capacity and ability; it's why we have helicopters in the sky saving people's lives.
I guess I'm lamenting the gov't falling back on okay protocols and acquiescing to the passport vs some that could involve a bit of creativity but also stones to pull off.
Apologies if this point has been made already and admittedly simplistic but ... as a society it seems we have gone from the values of Aesop's fable The Ant and the Grasshopper to the Bizarro world of the Ant getting the vaccine, socially distancing, masking and taking care of him/herself and the community around them while the Grasshopper parties it up, avoids the vaccine to parasitically benefit from the broader immunity of the community and not only ignores distancing and masking requirements but instead protests and demands that any such restrictions (that they aren't observing anyway) be lifted. Later when Grasshopper gets a bad case of Covid he/she gets admitted to hospital with the other Grasshoppers and takes up all the available beds while Ant, who has been wait for cancer surgery or other critical treatment for months and months and months is once again "deferred".
Covid cases are going to rise and fall, in addition to adopting a temporary vaccine passport restricting the risk of unvaccinated people imposed when we see a wave coming and reducing their risk of getting seriously ill lets adopt a Triage Protocol that deems an un-vaccinated person as having opted out of health care wrt to developing a case of Covid - take those cases out of the system and it is no longer overstressed. If a bed is available for Grasshopper they can have it, but they can also pay for it.
The evidence is crystal clear that lockdowns don't work. He knows it full well, but he never had the guts to say it, because it would have meant he was wrong with lockdowns earlier on. Now he is hoist by his own petard. Serves him right.
Of course, vaccine passports don't work either, because vaccinated people transmit Covid quite well - so this "break the chains of transmission" comment is pure nonsense.
The only right answer is to not lock down and not discriminate. The media and the opposition will whine, and the public, at the behest of the medial, will complain too, but in a month their problem will be over.
Kenney has a lot going for him, but sadly not enough courage.
Kenny is his own worst enemy. He works hard, is on top of issues, communicates well and knows how to play politics. His flaws are taking on too much at once, pointless aggression and poor judgement of risk. For example, Alberta absolutely needs to reduce health and education spending closer to the levels or other provinces. Rather than take that on as his first task in 2019, Kenney picked fights with the Feds and other provinces. He dragged out contract negotiations with doctors and nurses. He should have imposed new contracts as first priority item and dine so quickly.
Respectfully Mark I disagree with two of your points. In my view:
1. lockdowns/restrictions do work, we saw that quite clearly in the third and earlier waves. they are a poor long term solution though for many reasons and should be used only when necessary.
2. vaccines have one potential and one proven benefit - they appear to work to reduce (to some degree) transmissibility and do work significantly to reduce the number of severe covid cases. We are at a point where case numbers should not matter anymore, just the number of cases that end up in hospital and that is where the vaccines do their job, albeit imperfectly. The percentage of vaccinated to unvaccinated covid cases that are in hospital tell the story.
I agree with what you say about vaccine efficacy. Bear in mind that the vast majority of eligible people are already vaccinated. This means that people's risk of being exposed to the virus comes from vaccinated people - they are somewhat less likely to have it, but there are way more of them. This means that segregating the unvaccinated is not effective.
On lockdowns, I think that you are not taking account multi-jurisdictional studies (US states, EU countries). Going on a purely chronological basis in one jurisdiction (we had a lockdown, cases went down) is very unreliable, as cases go up and down for many reasons, seasonality most among them.
Both good points. The new passport regime may only be intended as a stick/carrot to drive up vaccination numbers vs actually preventing transmission to and serious illness in unvaccinated people. While I personally accept that exchange on my personal liberty (easy for me as I am vaccinated and believe in it) I appreciate why this offends others and, at the least, responsible government should require being honest about what is being done and why.
Very true. I am also concerned that, if it is simply a way of forcing people to get vaccinated, choosing this particular way exacerbates fear in the vaccinated (and skepticism in the unvaccinated) and builds division and hatred among Canadians. Other moderately coercive measures, eg a simple tax on the unvaccinated (or a rebate for the vaccinated, which amounts to the same thing), while still objectionable to me, would be far less dangerous.
Of course, I think division and hatred is a feature, not a bug, for politicians. When people realize that, given relative ineffectiveness of vaccines at blocking transmission/infection, most people, vaccinated or not, will get Covid over the next year or two, many of them will be very very frightened and angry, and looking for a scapegoat. Politicians would rather that be the unvaccinated than themselves.
This situation is an indictment on the medical establishment and ultimately socialized medicine as much as on Jason Kenney. Kenney is a liability for the conservative movement in Canada, true, and he does need to take a walk in the snow, but this pandemic has shown us all how fragile and brittle a socialized health care system can be.
Say what you will about the US and even Asia and Europe, but their mixed public/private systems responded much more effectively and were much more resilient than the state run, social justice obsessed Canadian system.
That doesn't even count the fact it was the counties where health care is the most responsive to people's needs which developed and deployed vaccines. US, Germany and even Russia surpassed Canada.
Canadians need to do a post mortem after this pandemic and decide if they want a system that slowly is bankrupting Canadians while delivering a mediocre but socially fair system, or if we want a system that actually works buy might hurt the feelings of some people.
While a purely political assessment of a political cowboy like Kenney is doubtlessly appropriate, the fact is Kenney will not be alone in paying the price for his risky partisan bet. The only price Kenney likely pays is damage to his political career. The price paid by others, like patients and healthcare workers, will likely be much, much higher.
If Kenney were simply quarterbacking a Grey Cup team and the spectators were assessing the plays called where the only loss is a bit of pride on the losing side of players and fans, that's one thing. However, if spectators get sick and die as a result of plays called on the field by the risk-taking quarterback, then that's another league of metaphors altogether.
Jason Kenney is like Dr. Frankenstein. The monster he created is going to destroy him. That monster is the UCP party, his own creation. A populist party led by a decidely non populist leader. A recipe for disaster.
If he doesn't placate the anti-mask, anti-vax, wing of the party he will be out or the party will split. I shudder to think who would replace him, who would be acceptable to the anti vaxers?
We are in for a rough fall and winter in Alberta. We will never convince enough people to get vaccinated, and it may be too late anyway. Our hospital system can't cope with the numbers and the UCP has been making war on the health care workers, for the last two years. If you are going to fight with the doctors and nurses, at least wait until the pandemic is over.
Although I was never a Kenney fan, I thought at least he was competent. I was wrong. Again.
"So if Kenney is fucked (and he is), it’s not just because he and others were wrong, per se, but especially because he bet so much on being right"
I don't think this is common wisdom. Everyone knew the 4th wave was coming. Kenney just chose to ignore it. He was definitely wrong.
In each of the first 3 waves, modest restrictions would have crushed numbers to single digits if they were left in place for another 3-4 weeks. Not lockdowns. Kenney refused to learn that lesson as well as he and Hinshaw not admitting the predominant airborne nature of the coronavirus, and a couple of hundred million dollarsmaximum would have made schools much safer. This is on their hubris and lack of humility, so that a lot of Albertans would have paid a heavy price. And yes there were a lot of reputable experts who brought this up before multiple waves.
Those choosing to be irresponsible get to face the consequences of less freedom to move about with the no vaccine passport vaccine passport. Freedom carries responsibility with it. And no, I do not think the irresponsible should not be treated if they are sick. Health care workers have a moral and ethical obligation to treat all who need it, even the irresponsible. Even though we may not like it.
Kenney will pay the price for this, as will hinshaw. The timing is in question at this time.
What would that have solved other than resetting the timer? Covid zero is a fantasy. Restrictions drive down cases until they lift and then cases climb again. Rinse, repeat. During the first three waves, an argument could be made that restrictions contained spread until vaccines became available. Vaccines are highly effective and nothing better is on the horizon. Everyone is going to get Covid. As Jen pointed out, restrictions may prevent overloading the healthcare system, but at the cost of prolonging the pandemic.
Re: kenny being screwed... Does it really matter any more ? Politics seems to be way more tribal and identity based (as in, my identity is tied to my political party) these days. You are gonna vote for your team no matter what. How much movement is there really between parties, ? my gut tells me less and less.