[heightjunkie]

Wearing a mask is such a trivial matter that I can't understand continued complaints about it. Leaving it to the "discretion of the individual" is stupid; the vast majority of people will not do something unless they are instructed to or will just follow the tide. There are enough violently anti-mask morons out there to ruin a recommendation to wear masks. It is not a draconian overreach to expect people to wear a small piece of fabric over the faces during the pandemic of our lifetimes.

 

[JonnyCanuck]

There was a time when mandatory masking was necessary to limit the spread, and I supported that. With almost 70% of the population fully vaccinated, I don't believe it is necessary for everyone, everywhere in public. I will go along with mandates for public transit particularly in crowded situations, nursing homes, hospitals.
As I stated earlier in this thread .... if you feel threatened by COVID and you are not vaccinated, you have two choices .. get vaccinated or wear a mask when you are in public. If you are not vaccinated, don't care at all about COVID and want to mingle in public, then be prepared to face the consequences (i.e 70% of new cases). Just don't ask me, who is vaccinated, to be cautious or inconvenienced, because of you.

 

[heightjunkie]

What about asking you to do it for my two unvaccinated Children? I am double vaccinated, but wearing a mask is the only option to protect them, and it works far better if everyone is doing it.

Some people only think about their own conditions in life.

 

[JonnyCanuck]

What about asking you to do it for my two unvaccinated Children? I am double vaccinated, but wearing a mask is the only option to protect them, and it works far better if everyone is doing it.

Some people only think about their own conditions in life.

I am thinking about kids as was Deena Hinshaw ( a mother of young children) when she factored this into her recommendations. There has not been a serious outbreak amongst children in the early stages of the pandemic, through the 2 and 3rd waves or now during the Delta variant. Children were exposed to non-vaccinated adults in their own homes or anywhere in public, to people who were wearing masks or not wearing masks. Can some children possibly get COVID? ... sure it is possible ... just like they could get sick and be hospitalized from a hundred other viruses or diseases that are floating around society. I am sorry but there is no evidence to support a claim that children are seriously at risk, nor are they being hospitalized in any alarming numbers. Just look at recent and total case counts or hospitalizations by age group in Alberta or any of the other provinces.

 

[darwink]

Whether concerns about children are necessarily warranted as the central concern, doesn’t it come back to hospital utilization? Even with a huge number vaccinated, the USA is overwhelming their much more plentiful ICU capacity.

More than 11,500 hospitalized with COVID in Texas; ICU beds scarce

Some parts of Texas completely out of available ICU beds.

spectrumlocalnews.com

With Delta it looks like herd immunity is a thing of the past, and we can’t rely on vaccination to protect the unvaccinated. So we will adapt. Alberta just seems to need to learn the lessons at home each time, rather than act proactively.

 

[Chealion]

With almost 70% of the population fully vaccinated

We are nowhere near as fully vaxxed as we think we are, and is also why the CMOH continues to reiterate that we need to get vaccinated. Splitting it into % of eligible, or % of adults is good for seeing progress but can be misleading.

As of yesterday we are at 58.1% for all of Alberta (65.6% with at least one dose), while Calgary only is 64.3% (70.9% with at least one dose). So we have ~35.7% (or ~488k) of the population in Calgary without sufficient protection.

 

[CBBarnett]

We are nowhere near as fully vaxxed as we think we are, and is also why the CMOH continues to reiterate that we need to get vaccinated. Splitting it into % of eligible, or % of adults is good for seeing progress but can be misleading.

As of yesterday we are at 58.1% for all of Alberta (65.6% with at least one dose), while Calgary only is 64.3% (70.9% with at least one dose). So we have ~35.7% (or ~488k) of the population in Calgary without sufficient protection.

This is the most frustrating part about Kenney's, Hindshaw and the communications strategy on all this. By declaring it "best summer ever", "COVID is over" and there will be absolutely no repercussions on your life for not taking public health seriously by getting vaccinated, they signaled to everyone on the fence that remains that it's alright go back to normal. Sure we will tell you everyday to get vaccinated but we won't do anything if you don't.

The problem with that should be obvious - only 58% are vaccinated in Alberta, well below the national average and the lowest of all provinces. Only up to 85-90% can be vaccinated once you account for the under 12 population . Delta is so contagious you need a super high % to be vaccinated to prevent community spread. We won't get anywhere close by public officials taking the foot off the gas, offering no consequences for those that don't want to take it seriously, and always winking at an anti-vax, conspiracy theory driven base that they should still vote for you.

It's still amazing to me that we have a government that believes the freedom of someone to go to restaurants is greater than the freedom of others to not get infected by that person spreading a (now largely preventable thanks to vaccines) deadly pathogen. A complete abdication of what the purpose of government is and a disgusting distortion of the concept of civil liberties.

People have the right to consume alcohol as much as they want. But they don’t have the right to get behind the wheel of a car and drive around because you’re endangering other people and their right to not be murdered by you. How are vaccinations any different?

 

[Silence&Motion]

If you are not vaccinated, don't care at all about COVID and want to mingle in public, then be prepared to face the consequences (i.e 70% of new cases). Just don't ask me, who is vaccinated, to be cautious or inconvenienced, because of you.

I actually feel inconvenienced having my taxes contribute to the millions of dollars a day it's costing to keep 40-something unvaccinated people in the ICU and 100-something unvaccinated people in the hospital. We clearly can't deny them medical coverage, but there should be consequences for willingly doing so much damage to the sustainability of the health care system.

Also, when it comes to kids, I'm not as worried about overwhelming the ICUs as I am about the uncertainty surrounding long term chronic disease (although 600,000 unvaccinated children in this province could absolutely overwhelm the pediatric ICUs).

 

[Silence&Motion]

Florida's daily COVID death rate has topped 200, the highest ever since the beginning of the pandemic. Only 52% of their population is fully vaccinated.

Alberta's vaccination rate (58%) is not much better. Lots of potential for the hospitalizations and deaths in this province. The pandemic is not over by a long shot.

We can never get back to normal while we have millions of unvaccinated people in this province overloading the health care system and putting our kids at risk. At this point, there's really only one solution to end the pandemic: time to take off the kid gloves with the unvaccinated. Remove almost all privileges to participate in public life without getting a vaccine. There is widespread public support behind these measures. We're just waiting for political leaders with the spine and the competence to act.

The University Health Network in Toronto (oversees most of the downtown hospitals) has given all of its employees until October to get vaccinated. Anyone who doesn't will be put on two weeks of unpaid leave. If they're not vaccinated by the end of their leave, they're terminated. These strict measures will become common place. It's just a question of how desperate we get before we finally implement them.

 

[Mountain Man]

CSEC will require vaccines for all ticket holders, curious to watch the backlash from the dumb on this one...

 

[Silence&Motion]

Welp! Kenney crawling back to the podium with his tail between his legs to impose a mask requirement and new lockdown measures. Who could have possibly seen this coming? I thought the pandemic was over back in June!

All of this could be avoided if the UCP just had the spine to impose a vaccine mandate. All of this suffering just because they're afraid to cross their most extreme right-wing fringe.

 

[ByeByeBaby]

Sorry, I couldn't find a reminiscing about school thread, so I just put this here; sorry if it's not relevant.
-----
Remember when we all had to do group projects in school? There was always one or two lazy people in the group who didn't do their fair share, and as a result, instead of the group producing a good project and having a good outcome, the group wound up with a mediocre outcome at best and everybody's grade suffered because of the lazy people. Thankfully, the teachers had the common sense to not seek out the lazy people in the group and give them %100 as a bonus after everybody else had done the hard work all term.

 

[UrbanRED]

Welp! Kenney crawling back to the podium with his tail between his legs to impose a mask requirement and new lockdown measures. Who could have possibly seen this coming? I thought the pandemic was over back in June!

All of this could be avoided if the UCP just had the spine to impose a vaccine mandate. All of this suffering just because they're afraid to cross their most extreme right-wing fringe.

What's amazing is they're pissing off 70% of the population to appease 10% of the population. Kenney may have the worst political instinct I've ever seen in an executive level politician

 

[Silence&Motion]

What's amazing is they're pissing off 70% of the population to appease 10% of the population. Kenney may have the worst political instinct I've ever seen in an executive level politician

It is extremely frustrating that this is how the politics is aligning at this moment. They are assuming that it is a bigger risk to lose the right-wing of their base to an insurgent Wild Rose-style party than the centrist-wing to the NDP. They appear to think that, by 2023, squishy centrists in Calgary will say "oh well, I still feel more comfortable voting Conservative than NDP". I really hope that doesn't happen.

 

[Duck Lightning]

It is extremely frustrating that this is how the politics is aligning at this moment. They are assuming that it is a bigger risk to lose the right-wing of their base to an insurgent Wild Rose-style party than the centrist-wing to the NDP. They appear to think that, by 2023, squishy centrists in Calgary will say "oh well, I still feel more comfortable voting Conservative than NDP". I really hope that doesn't happen.

Long time conservatives like my dad want Kenney to resign because of incompetence. He's done like dinner.