CARPAY: Government report says Alberta COVID response not grounded in science

John Carpay is President of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (jccf.ca), which challenged lockdowns and mandatory vaccination policies in courts across CanadaAlberta’s former Premier Jason Kenney and former Chief Medical Officer Dr. Deena Hinshaw should read the Final Report of the Alberta COVID-19 Pandemic Data Review Task Force. Commissioned by the Government of Alberta, it sits on the Government of Alberta website and examines the lockdowns and vaccine passports imposed on Albertans from 2020 to 2022. While worded very diplomatically, this Final Report by eminent doctors is a damning indictment of government policies that inflicted far more harm than good. This Task Force was led by Dr. Gary Davidson, Chief of the Emergency Department at Red Deer Regional Hospital from 2016 to 2020, and an Associate Clinical Professor at the University of Alberta.The Final Report was released on January 24, 2025. Chapter 1 addresses governance and the flow of information. The Kenney-Hinshaw regime abandoned Alberta’s existing pandemic response plan, lacked transparency in decision-making, and failed to engage with available evidence when making decisions. The Scientific Advisory Group (SAG) approached evidence with bias and inconsistency, ultimately resulting in flawed decision-making.Chapter 2 outlines the failures of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta: over-centralization, limited consideration of alternative perspectives, undermining professional autonomy, and a failure to consider diverse viewpoints in policy development. Transparency, accountability, and a balanced approach to decision-making were lacking. Fair, evidence-based, and patient-centered care was also lacking during the public health emergency.Chapter 3 challenges the Alberta government’s use of inaccurate modeling scenarios in early 2020, its failure to validate models with real-world data, its failure to update models continuously based on evolving evidence, and its failure to give sufficient weight to sources of information other than modeling when making decisions.Chapter 4 evaluates Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs), more commonly known as lockdowns.The Task Force noted that “these measures had a limited effect on reducing infection growth” and “also incurred significant social and economic costs.” Premier Kenney and Dr. Hinshaw failed to pursue a “balanced approach considering both health and economic implications.”Chapter 5 highlights the lack of evidence for the claim that continuous masking prevented the transmission of COVID-19 and other respiratory illnesses, noting that “the number of COVID-19 infections did not decrease despite the implementation of mask mandates and widespread vaccination.” The Kenney-Hinshaw regime ignored the potential harms of masking. The Task Force added that “the choice to wear a mask should be a personal medical decision, guided by informed consent.”Chapter 6 raises concerns about the accuracy of the PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests and their potential for false positives and false negatives. Rapid antigen tests are likewise unreliable as a screening tool and should not be used as a basis for lockdowns.Chapter 7 notes that infection-acquired immunity (natural immunity), obtained through prior infection with COVID, can provide durable and protective immune responses that are equal to, or better than, vaccine-acquired immunity. However, the Kenney-Hinshaw regime overlooked or downplayed natural immunity in its public health messaging and policies, failing to adopt “a comprehensive and nuanced approach to immunization strategies.” Those with natural immunity, and the majority of Albertans who were not threatened by COVID, should not have been subjected to coerced vaccination.In Chapter 8, the Task Force notes that vaccines were not designed to halt COVID transmission, and recognizes the deaths and injuries attributed to the vaccines, as well as a known risk of myocarditis, particularly in young males. The Task Force recommends halting the use of COVID vaccines without full disclosure of their potential risks, ending their use in healthy children and teenagers, conducting further research into their effectiveness, establishing support for vaccine-injured individuals, and providing an opt-out mechanism from federal public health policy. Chapter 9 addresses therapeutics, challenging “the restrictive approach taken by federal and provincial health authorities toward certain treatments, such as repurposed drugs and supplements, despite their potential benefits.” The “promising results for ivermectin in terms of viral clearance and reduced hospitalization and death rates” were ignored by the Kenney-Hinshaw regime. In like manner, the Alberta government ignored the promise shown by fluvoxamine in a small randomized controlled trial, as well as extensive studies showing that colchicine showed a decrease in poor outcomes. Alberta’s Scientific Advisory Group (SAG) recommended not using vitamin D3 for COVID treatment, despite a study showing a correlation between low levels of vitamin D3 and poor COVID outcomes. The Task Force condemns the government’s hostility toward alternate COVID therapeutics, and urges Alberta to “allow healthcare professionals to prescribe treatments in their patients' best interest and ensure access to therapies with established safety records.”I predict that Mr. Kenney and Dr. Hinshaw will make no effort to refute the Task Force’s findings.I predict that “mainstream” (government-funded) media will interview only their reliable ideologues, who will use innuendo and platitudes without engaging the evidence, and who will not explain specifically why they disagree with the Final Report’s conclusions and recommendations.I predict that lockdown supporters will attack the report’s authors and contributors. However, all have very impressive credentials: Dr. Gary Davidson, Dr. Blaine Achen, Dr. David Vickers, Dr. Justin Chin, Dr. David Speicher, Dr. Byram Bridle, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Dr. Kevin Bardosh, Dr. John Conly, Frank Byl, Angela Wood, Mark Bell, and Natasha Gonek.I hope my predictions are wrong.I hope that the Alberta COVID-19 Pandemic Data Review Task Force will be taken seriously by all Canadians who are willing to engage in honest debate about the findings and recommendations in the Final Report. Hindsight is only 20/20 when we care to look.John Carpay is President of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (jccf.ca), which challenged lockdowns and mandatory vaccination policies in courts across Canada.

CARPAY: Government report says Alberta COVID response not grounded in science

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