Premier Jason Kenney talked about draconian COVID-19 lockdowns, trusting Albertans, vaccines, and school boards during a Facebook live event last week

On Tuesday, October 6, Premier Jason Kenney sat down for a Q & A live on Facebook. Many of the questions during the hour-long chat revolved around COVID-19. The first question had to do with when Albertans could expect Stage 3 of the reopening. He said they planned to continue taking incremental steps rather than “one big flick of the switch.” He said that they would have announcements in the days and weeks ahead about the steps they will be taking next. “Our Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, has made a persuasive point that when we do relax particular rules, she wants to assess from the data whether or not that has lead to a significant increase in cases,” explained Premier Kenney. He said that Alberta’s goal is not to eliminate the spread, as he said that is not realistic, but rather to learn to live with it. “We have to exercise personal responsibility to protect our healthcare system, but what we don’t need are draconian lockdowns and restrictions on people’s lives that would have far more negative long-term economic, social and health consequences.”

Another commenter asked Premier Kenney if he felt Edmonton needed a lockdown due to the recent increases. He was swift to say no. He pointed out that the city, and greater area, has a population of 1.1 million people yet has 1000 active COVID-19 cases with 23 in hospital and five in ICU. “I’m concerned that amongst some, there has become this view that whenever we see an increase in cases that we have to respond by locking things down. Some views are that there might not even be widespread access to a vaccine until well into next year, perhaps not until the fall of next year, and there’s new evidence that the virus is mutating pretty rapidly.” He eluded to a recent series of tests from Houston that indicated a very widespread mutation of COVID-19. “Those mutations may move faster than the development of new vaccines,” said Premier Kenney, which brought him to his main point. “We are nowhere near, with five people in ICU in Edmonton and 23 in hospital with COVID-19, overwhelming our healthcare system.”

Premier Kenney said that he is genuinely concerned about what a lockdown would mean for Albertans. “What are the implications of that for people’s social health, economic well-being, the ability to feed their families, their mental health, their emotional health, and all of the other downstream social and economic consequences?” One of the things the Premier said is essential to remember is that COVID cases resulting in death have gone down worldwide.

“I think our focus must be on protecting the vulnerable as opposed to damaging the lives, potentially permanently, particularly of vulnerable people in our economy that is already under massive stress. We will continue to consult with our Chief Medical Officer of Health. If she sees that there may be very targeted measures that we can take to help prevent widespread increases in cases, particularly to prevent exponential growth, then we will keep an open mind about that, but lockdowns? That is not the approach of Alberta. It never has been and baring some catastrophic sudden overwhelming of our healthcare system; it will not be our policy.”

He also said that Alberta hadn’t had a lockdown compared to what is happening around the world. “A lockdown is what happened in New York, where they put people on shelter in place orders and wouldn’t allow people to leave their homes except in the most extreme circumstances. We have never had that type of lockdown in Alberta. Yet, we’ve had lower levels of infections, hospitalizations, ICU admissions and COVID-related fatalities than many of those jurisdictions that did have lockdowns. I believe that validates the Alberta approach, which has emphasized public education and personal responsibility over government micromanagement,” he explained.

From there, the conversation turned to the Government of Canada. Premier Kenney was extraordinarily critical and said that both the federal government and the Public Health Agency of Canada were “completely wrong” at the beginning of the pandemic when they argued against travelling restrictions from COVID hotspots like Wuhan, calling it bigoted. “That position was informed in part by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the WHO’s opposition to travel restrictions on COVID was in turn informed by the People’s Republic of China that argued it even when they had blocked travel from the city of Wuhan to other parts of China. They allowed flights to depart from Wuhan to the rest of the world and argued against restrictions on those flights. I think that was, frankly, a criminal decision. I think there must be consequences. This was the Chinese government knowingly facilitating the spreading of the virus around the world by allowing flights to leave Wuhan at the peak of the pandemic, and we, our Canadian National Government, naively and blindly looked in the other direction.”

After being asked to unmask Albertans, the Premier reiterated that the province had not mandated masks. He said that some municipalities, such as Edmonton and Calgary, have put in mandates and that some school boards have made changes. The province asked that children grades four and up wear masks in crowded areas. “Then a bunch of school boards decided that they were going to require children from kindergarten and up, even while seated in class, to use masks. All I can tell you is that it is not the advice or the policy of the Government of Alberta or the Chief Medical Officer.” He encouraged parents to speak to their councillors and school board trustees if those mandates concern them.

When asked about a second wave, Premier Kenney said that he didn’t feel there was a first wave compared to what they had modelled. “At the peak back in April and May, we had just over 100 people in hospitals. We had, at the very peak, 30 or so in the ICU’s for a province of about 4.4 million. Just to put this in comparison, the number of COVID fatalities in Alberta per capita is one-quarter of the Canadian level of per capita COVID fatalities.” Premier Kenney said that one key lesson he has learned is “to trust people to be responsible and to responsibility exercise freedom as opposed to seeking to micromanage everyone lives.” He said that those types of policies have “ultimately proven to be effective.”