Premier Jason Kenney speaking at a press conference Monday (Photo: Government of Alberta)

By Chris Brown

As Vaccine distribution expands

Alberta could look at loosening public health restrictions in May: Kenney

Apr 12, 2021 | 12:59 PM

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney put a loose timeline on when Alberta could look at relaxing public health restrictions put in place last week and what it will take to get there.

Kenney said that government’s projections show that by the end of May close to 50 per cent of Albertans would be vaccinated against COVID-19.

“At that point, I think we could look forward to raising capacity limits, to larger gatherings to potentially relaxing some business rules,” said Kenney Monday.

“If Albertans rise to the challenge and do everything they can to stop social interaction and transmission, I believe that we’ll be on track about a month from now to look back to relaxing measures as we have the protective effects of the vaccine.”

He said the restrictions, which saw the province revert back to Step 1 of the phased reopening and included the shuttering of indoor dining at restaurants, are meant to “buy us time” so the vaccines can overtake the variants.

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“Once the vaccines beat the variants, we get our freedom back.”

Kenney added it would be irresponsible to loosen restrictions now as new cases, active cases and hospitalizations continue to rise.

“None of us like this,” stated Kenney. “But, if the alternative is blowing out our healthcare system, mass cancellation of surgeries, a potential surge in preventable deaths, that is not morally acceptable.”

Kenney said the province is on track to potentially hit 2,000 average daily cases in the near future and quite possibly 20,000 active cases based on the active case to hospitalization ratio.

“If we were to hit, for example, 40,000 active cases in Alberta, then we would be blowing well past the capacity of the healthcare system.”

The premier added a sustained decrease on daily new cases and total active cases is needed as well to see some public health restrictions lifted

“Once we can see that on a sustained basis, let’s say for a period of a couple of weeks, then we can safely assume that the vaccines are starting to win, and then we can start moving to relax restrictions again.”

Premier Jason Kenney laid out a “path to recovery” plan Monday morning (Photo: Government of Alberta / YouTube)

The province has also expanded its vaccine rollout recently.

Last week Phase 2B was expanded to include more eligible health conditions. On the weekend the first step of Phase 2C was announced, making 240,000 more health-care workers eligible as of Monday.

Kenney said that all Albertans will be offered a first dose of vaccine by the end of June provided the vaccines arrive as scheduled.

He added that about 500,000 doses have arrived in the past couple of weeks. About 120,000 doses of Pfizer vaccine are expected each week until the end of June, when that will jump to 225,000 per week.

Kenney said more Moderna vaccine doses are coming and they hope to get the first Johnson & Johnson doses, which are a single-dose vaccine, in early May.

Alberta has more than 1,300 pharmacies administering vaccines and there are more than 100 immunization sites in the province.

“We’re nearing the end of a long and tiring journey,” said Kenney.

(CHAT News Today – with files from Shaun Penner / EverythingGP)