On the heels of new lockdown measures in Alberta, The Western Standard reviews Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s seesaw approach to dealing with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic..March 20, 2020 – Four days after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic, Alberta cities including Calgary declared local states of emergency and shut down most non-essential businesses and serviced. Alberta also declared a provincial public state of emergency and closed all schools..May 13, 2020 – Alberta enters a Stage 1 re-opening plan allowing businesses, like restaurants and retailers, to reopen with social distancing restrictions..June 12, 2020 – Stage 2 is introduced earlier than expected, allowing theatres, massage therapists and hair salons as well as libraries to open. Alberta’s state of emergency ends after nearly three months..Aug. 4, 2020 – The province mandates back-to-school mask use for students in grades four to 12..Oct. 26, 2020 – Alberta introduces a limit of no more than 15 people for social gatherings..Nov. 12, 2020 – Tighter restrictions are introduced in restaurants and bars, including an earlier last call for alcohol..Nov. 24, 2020 – The province announces new and even tighter restrictions banning social gatherings, limits attendance numbers in churches and funerals and closes Alberta high schools..Nov. 25, 2020 – A Facebook post from Kenney states “We decided not to proceed with a lockdown because of the profound damage it would cause to Albertans, thereby deepening the mental health crisis and leaving many to despair. We will not let political pressure or ideological approaches cause indiscriminate damage to people’s lives and livelihoods.”.Dec. 8, 2020 – Despite Kenney’s announcement less than two weeks earlier, the province is plunged into another full lockdown. All indoor and outdoor social gatherings are banned and non-essential businesses are forced to close including restaurants..Jan. 14, 2021 – Restrictions on outdoor gatherings are eased and personal service businesses, including massage and hair salons, are allowed to reopen..Jan. 29, 2021 – Premier Jason Kenney announces “The Path Forward” framework, allowing for an incremental easing of restrictions over three stages. Benchmark metrics were set based on hospitalizations of COVID-19 patients and a minimum wait period of three weeks between each phase..Feb. 8, 2021 – “Step 1” of The Path Forward plan begins with Alberta easing some restrictions on restaurants, kids sports and indoor fitness..March 1, 2021 – Kenney announces “Step 2” phasing in low-intensity fitness classes; however, earlier benchmarks were ignored and the remainder of Phase 2 was delayed until March 8 when libraries, retailers, banquets, etc. were permitted to resume at varied levels of capacity. Sports programs were also allowed to resume with limits on participants and social-distancing measures..March 22, 2021 – Again ignoring previously-set benchmarks, the province announces, due to a surge in COVID cases brought on by variants of concern, “Step 3” would be paused until COVID patients are under 300 and declining..April 6, 2021 – Premier Kenney rolls Alberta back to “Step 1” until further notice moving the goalposts yet again, stating restaurants in the province were only allowed to offer outdoor dining service..April 29, 2021 – Kenney announces targeted heath measures specific to regions where there were higher numbers of COVID cases. Schools in those regions were to switch to online learning, indoor gyms were to close and all indoor sports activity were to be suspended. This would last for two weeks..May 4, 2021 – New restrictions are announced again province-wide. All schools including post-secondary institutions were moved to online learning, indoor recreation activities were shut down and in-person dining was prohibited as of May 10. In those areas with high case counts, gatherings were limited to 5, retail stores went to 10% capacity, personal care services were closed and outdoor gatherings were limited to immediate family members only. .May 25, 2021 – Students were permitted to return to in-person learning. The next day, Kenney announced he was replacing his “Plan Forward” strategy with the “Open for Summer” plan, based on vaccination progress and hospitalization numbers..June 18, 2021 – Kenney announces “Step 3” would be implemented July 1..July 1, 2021 – Kenney announces Alberta is “Open for Summer” and nearly all remaining public heath orders are lifted including mask mandates, self-isolation requirements, scaled back testing and contact tracing..July 2021 – Kenney, while attending a Calgary Stampede pancake breakfast, is recorded saying he swears to God the province is “open for good.”.July 29, 2021 – The province announces major changes to the COVID-19 protocols on testing, self-isolation and contact tracing. Testing would now only be for the symptomatic; self-isolating is no longer mandatory and AHS would stop close-contact contact tracing..Sept. 4, 2021 – Alberta brings back mandatory masking for all indoor public spaces and work places. Restaurants are ordered to end alcohol service at 10 p.m..Sept. 15, 2021 – Kenney announces Alberta returns to a state of emergency. After many promises from the premier Alberta will not introduce a vaccine passport, proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test will now be mandatory for participating businesses and social events..As of September 20, restaurants will have to shut their dining rooms and only provide service on their patios or take-out meals until they have a vaccine passport system in place which will then offer them exemptions. The province will also continue a curfew of 10 p.m. for liquor sales..Forced social distancing returns and it will be illegal for unvaccinated people to attend social functions in homes. Vaccinated families can have friends come over from one other vaccinated house to a total of 10 people. Along with other restrictions, mandatory work from home orders are also back in place..Nov. 19, 2021 – On the heels of Health Canada’s approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for children 5-11-years-old, Kenney said children will not be required to be vaccinated to attend school..Dec. 21, 2021 – Heading into the Christmas break, Kenny brought in additional restrictions and opened access to COVID-19 booster shots for Albertans aged 18 and older. Additional restrictions included tightened capacity limits for some venues, the closing of interactive activities such as dancing and billiards in restaurants, pubs and bars and ending liquor services by 11 p.m. nightly. Kenney also encouraged Albertans to reduce the number of contacts over the holidays by half..Dec. 30, 2021 – UCPs Education Minister Adriana LaGrange announced students would see an extra week of Christmas vacation offering school administrators and teachers “time to plan for students to return safely to learning.”.Jan. 7, 2022 – After Canada’s Minister of Health Jean-Yves Duclos said provinces will likely be moving to mandatory vaccination policies, Kenny rejected the idea for Albertans..“Alberta’s Legislature removed the power of mandatory vaccination from the Public Health Act last year and will not revisit that decision, period,” said Kenney in a tweet..Jan. 12, 2022 – One day after Quebec Premier Francois Legault announced his government will start to tax unvaccinated people, Premier Kenney said there will be no vaccine tax in Alberta..Jan. 20, 2022 – Based on wastewater test results from 19 areas across Alberta, Kenney announced the province has likely reached the peak of the Omicron surge and indicated COVID-19 restrictions could be lifted “hopefully soon.”.Feb. 3, 2022 – Kenney said Thursday, the province will put a plan in place and announce a “simple phased plan to remove almost all public health restrictions later this month.”.“The rationale for REP is not as strong today as when we introduced it in September. As COVID changes, our response to it must change as well,” Kenney said..“After two years of this, we simply cannot continue to rely on the blunt instrument of damaging restrictions as a primary tool to cope with a disease that will likely be with us for the rest of our lives.”.Feb. 8, 2022 – Kenney announced the Alberta government will begin to relax COVID-19 restrictions across the province, first by removing the vaccine passports and the Restriction Exemption Program as of Wednesday..Melanie Risdon is a reporter with the Western Standard.,.mrisdon@westernstandardonline.com
