Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is looking to get the full picture of the fallout from COVID-19 mandates despite pushback from state-funded media. Former chief of emergency medicine at the Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre Dr. Gary Davidson, who criticized the lockdowns and vaccine mandates during the pandemic, has been appointed to lead the review of Alberta’s pandemic-era health data. Davidson was appointed chair of the review last year, the Globe and Mail reported Tuesday. A task force is set to work on the pandemic review in 2022, but details have not yet been shared with the public, although it has been suggested emergency measures should go through the courts. “I left it to (Davidson) to assemble the panel with the guidance that I would like to have a broad range of perspectives,” Smith told reporters at the Legislature Tuesday. “I needed somebody who was going to look at everything that happened with some fresh eyes and maybe with a little bit of a contrarian perspective because we’ve only ever been given one perspective.”Including those “shouted down in the public sphere,” added the premier. She said it was imperative to have experts analyze public health data and examine unpopular claims about vaccine side effects for legitimacy. “There are a couple of concerns that I have about the number of unexplained deaths. I wanted to know what was behind that,” said Smith. “There’s also all kinds of rumours on Twitter. I needed to see whether or not there was any concern about myocarditis, pericarditis, blood clots. We’ve all read that there are concerns about that.”Smith’s administration has budgeted $2 million for the review, but the premier doubts it will cost that much. Alberta authorities are expecting to receive the report in May and Smith said the findings will be available to the public. Smith, elected in 2022 as leader of the United Conservative Party (UCP), campaigned on promises to address COVID-19 grievances. She made public apologies to and promised to vindicate Albertans who were affected by mandates. It was later learned Smith did not have the authority to offer amnesty to those who violated restrictions. Late in 2022, Smith began putting together a task force to analyze public health data and investigate COVID-19 side effects. Findings are to help the province plan for potential future pandemics. In April 2024, Alberta health officials updated guidance to include extra vaccines for certain groups, including immunocompromised individuals, starting with six-month-old babies. Davidson, who ran for the UCP in 2021, was outspoken about his questions surrounding Alberta hospitals during the height of the pandemic. “Are we in a crisis with our hospitals right now,” Davidson asked while speaking to a crowd in September 2021. As soon as the COVID-19 numbers start to “droop,” health officials imposed lockdowns, so it looks like the lockdowns caused the downshift in cases, Davidson said. Alberta Health Services denied these claims at the time.Davidson explained to the Crown during his speech how his hospital was short on staff and beds. This crisis “has been going on for six years, it has nothing to do with COVID,” he said, adding an anecdote about an unvaccinated nurse who walked out after 30 years on the job. “That’s the crisis we have. We have a mess," he said..The Davidson task force is the second of its kind to analyze COVID-19 regulations. Former Reform Party leader Preston Manning filed a report in 2023 examining the pandemic mandates as pertains to the law and a total of 90 recommendations to handle future pandemics. Authorities should consider “alternative scientific narratives” to achieve a “balanced response” when facing its next crises, the highly-publicized report stated. The Davidson panel has been operating under the radar for the last year because “we wanted them to do their work,” said Smith. Opposition NDP leader Rachel Notley said the task force was infiltrated with “fringe views” who believe the earth is flat — a completely unrelated presupposition — and the review is therefore a waste of money. “I believe the Earth is round, and I don’t think that the people of Alberta should be paying for people who believe it’s flat to be engaging in the conversation,” stated Notley, per Global News. During the pandemic Smith questioned the overreaching lockdown mandates and their long-term impacts on people’s health. She was also more willing to hear out theories about alternative treatments to COVID-19 such as Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.She also acknowledged the Great Barrington Declaration, a theory posed by infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists that posed “grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of prevailing COVID-19 policies."
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is looking to get the full picture of the fallout from COVID-19 mandates despite pushback from state-funded media. Former chief of emergency medicine at the Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre Dr. Gary Davidson, who criticized the lockdowns and vaccine mandates during the pandemic, has been appointed to lead the review of Alberta’s pandemic-era health data. Davidson was appointed chair of the review last year, the Globe and Mail reported Tuesday. A task force is set to work on the pandemic review in 2022, but details have not yet been shared with the public, although it has been suggested emergency measures should go through the courts. “I left it to (Davidson) to assemble the panel with the guidance that I would like to have a broad range of perspectives,” Smith told reporters at the Legislature Tuesday. “I needed somebody who was going to look at everything that happened with some fresh eyes and maybe with a little bit of a contrarian perspective because we’ve only ever been given one perspective.”Including those “shouted down in the public sphere,” added the premier. She said it was imperative to have experts analyze public health data and examine unpopular claims about vaccine side effects for legitimacy. “There are a couple of concerns that I have about the number of unexplained deaths. I wanted to know what was behind that,” said Smith. “There’s also all kinds of rumours on Twitter. I needed to see whether or not there was any concern about myocarditis, pericarditis, blood clots. We’ve all read that there are concerns about that.”Smith’s administration has budgeted $2 million for the review, but the premier doubts it will cost that much. Alberta authorities are expecting to receive the report in May and Smith said the findings will be available to the public. Smith, elected in 2022 as leader of the United Conservative Party (UCP), campaigned on promises to address COVID-19 grievances. She made public apologies to and promised to vindicate Albertans who were affected by mandates. It was later learned Smith did not have the authority to offer amnesty to those who violated restrictions. Late in 2022, Smith began putting together a task force to analyze public health data and investigate COVID-19 side effects. Findings are to help the province plan for potential future pandemics. In April 2024, Alberta health officials updated guidance to include extra vaccines for certain groups, including immunocompromised individuals, starting with six-month-old babies. Davidson, who ran for the UCP in 2021, was outspoken about his questions surrounding Alberta hospitals during the height of the pandemic. “Are we in a crisis with our hospitals right now,” Davidson asked while speaking to a crowd in September 2021. As soon as the COVID-19 numbers start to “droop,” health officials imposed lockdowns, so it looks like the lockdowns caused the downshift in cases, Davidson said. Alberta Health Services denied these claims at the time.Davidson explained to the Crown during his speech how his hospital was short on staff and beds. This crisis “has been going on for six years, it has nothing to do with COVID,” he said, adding an anecdote about an unvaccinated nurse who walked out after 30 years on the job. “That’s the crisis we have. We have a mess," he said..The Davidson task force is the second of its kind to analyze COVID-19 regulations. Former Reform Party leader Preston Manning filed a report in 2023 examining the pandemic mandates as pertains to the law and a total of 90 recommendations to handle future pandemics. Authorities should consider “alternative scientific narratives” to achieve a “balanced response” when facing its next crises, the highly-publicized report stated. The Davidson panel has been operating under the radar for the last year because “we wanted them to do their work,” said Smith. Opposition NDP leader Rachel Notley said the task force was infiltrated with “fringe views” who believe the earth is flat — a completely unrelated presupposition — and the review is therefore a waste of money. “I believe the Earth is round, and I don’t think that the people of Alberta should be paying for people who believe it’s flat to be engaging in the conversation,” stated Notley, per Global News. During the pandemic Smith questioned the overreaching lockdown mandates and their long-term impacts on people’s health. She was also more willing to hear out theories about alternative treatments to COVID-19 such as Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.She also acknowledged the Great Barrington Declaration, a theory posed by infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists that posed “grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of prevailing COVID-19 policies."
