By the time you read this editorial, Premier Jason Kenney will have relaxed health guidelines for Christmas because he said he and his mother have no intention of following the current guidelines.
What a dismal example of provincial leadership—changing the laws to fit your personal wants. It doesn’t lead to a civil society, but for those who share Kenney’s priority for self-gratification over public health, it’s great.
Or perhaps Kenney’s just ensuring that he, his insiders and Caucus won’t get ‘caught’ this Christmas for violating their own health guidelines.
Quebec and Ontario already relaxed their indoor gathering sizes for Christmas, increasing it to 25. To no one’s surprise in the medical community, COVID cases have grown exponentially since in both provinces.
At her regular update on Friday, Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam, advised, begged, encouraged Canadians to keep holiday gatherings small (yes, smaller than those currently allowed by provincial governments).
The Deputy Chief Public Health Officer, Dr. Howard Njoo suggested only fully vaccinated people get together in small groups, consider wearing masks indoors and open windows periodically to improve ventilation.
For those not following the news or still not believing COVID is real, the world is in an uproar again. COVID cases are soaring and the Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said travellers going abroad should be aware that the COVID rules could suddenly change in your destination country or upon your return to Canada.
Be warned, it’s not the government’s fault if you’re stranded or quarantined after an ill-advised foreign trip over Christmas or this winter. Trips across Canada are okay but be reminded all health guidelines need to be followed—vaccination, distancing, good hygiene, ventilation, masking and limited family groups.
In Norway, 120 fully vaccinated employees got together for a Christmas party, 80 tested positive for Omicron a few days after. That’s what medical people promised us. If we don’t get enough vaccinated, quickly enough worldwide (which we didn’t), the viruses will continue to mutate and current vaccines will lose their punch.
Researchers in countries experiencing Omicron have seen primarily moderate cases, but Dr. Tam warns there is much more to learn. Even if a tiny proportion of cases cause serious illness or death, hospitals and intensive care units would be overrun if the virus spreads rampantly.
Likewise, wealthy countries have not met their commitment to provide sufficient vaccines to those poor nations where new variants re-produce. And American and European drug companies are more interested in selling booster shots to first world countries than allowing access to their drug patents for other countries to produce vaccines for the world’s poor.
Unlike ‘Open for Summer’, Dr. Hinshaw seems to be more inclined to follow the wisdom of other public health officials rather than her political leader. She recently expressed concern that although the COVID-19 hospitalization rates have gone down from the fourth-wave peak, they are still much higher than normal for a fall flu season. She also said it’s really clear that informal gatherings in homes pose the highest risk of transmission.
In Japan, vaccination rates went from one per cent to 78 per cent in seven months, and continues to increase, after political leaders modelled and reminded their citizens it was their patriotic duty to not put others at risk.
Dr. Tam called vaccines a ‘gift’ that Canada did not have during the last holiday season. Unfortunately, too many have rejected that ‘gift’ and we are all but assured that another COVID wave will be everyone’s unwanted gift to share in January.
By Brenda Schimke
