Two Alberta doctors — Dr. Noel Gibney and Dr. James Talbot — have written a letter to the provincial government saying non-vaccinated people shouldn’t be allowed to be employed in Alberta..The letter from Talbot and Gibney to Health Minister Jason Copping demanded the implementation of seven measures to help stem the COVID-19 crisis in the province..They demand that all Albertans in the ICUs in the hospital be transferred out-of-province, making vaccine passports mandatory to access all non-essential services, and making vaccines mandatory for all employees of both essential and “non-essential” businesses..“Alberta’s hospital system, especially ICUs are under more killing stress than at any time in the province’s history,” the letter states, as reported by Postmedia..“All Albertans have and do depend on our acute care hospitals. We are within days of being forced to implement a triage protocol which will force health-care workers to make life and death decisions on who will get scarce resources, like ventilators.”.The doctors are demanding a four-week hard lockdown of nightclubs, casinos, bars and indoor dining at restaurants, a closure of gyms and indoor sports, and limiting capacity at stores, malls and places of worship..The Alberta health care system has been in a battle with the fourth wave of COVID-19 with ICUs at near capacity limits and more than 1,000 people in hospitals battling the virus..Premier Jason Kenney accepted the resignation of Tyler Shandro this week and swapped and replaced him in the cabinet with him with Copping..Speaking on the Roy Green show Sunday, Kenney said imposing even harsher lockdowns at this stage of the pandemic “makes no sense.”.“I know there’s some people out there with the solution now is you just … impose a hard lockdown on everyone,” Kenney said..“First of all, that makes no sense for the 80% of the population that’s vaccinated, who are at much lower levels of risk of transmission and extremely lower level of risks of hospitalization. But secondly, it’s roughly 20% of the adult population who are unvaccinated who are less likely to observe public health measures. So that’s (why) we brought in a proof of vaccination program, and we think it’s going well.”.Kenney has used “proof of vaccination program” and “restrictions exemption program” as euphemisms for the provincial vaccine passport program..“I know that it’s easy to sit on the sidelines and criticize governments across the world for their response, but we’re all trying to do our best.”
