Prime Minister Jason Kenney will join Alberta’s chief medical officer for health Tuesday night to provide an update on COVID-19 in the province.
His press conference is scheduled for 5pm and will be broadcast live on publication of this article.
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Alberta’s infrastructure minister said Tuesday that the province officially asked Ottawa for help with the COVID-19 crisis.
“As part of our ongoing efforts to boost healthcare capacity during the public health emergency, we have formally asked the federal government to assist us with the transfers of patients and critical care personnel,” Ric McIver shared on Twitter.
In his letter to the federal Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, Bill Blair, McIver wrote: “We are preparing contingency plans, which include the possibility of transferring patients to other jurisdictions with reserve capacity.”
The letter identified two ways the federal government could help:
- Provide aeronautical medical evacuation capabilities, including, where possible, trained transfer personnel, to relocate patients outside of Alberta;
- Increase to AHS of intensive care staff, specifically intensive care unit registered nurses and respiratory therapists.
McIver requested an immediate meeting to discuss the requests.
The Kenney / Dr. Deena Hinshaw press conference will be preceded by a cabinet change announcement at 3:30 pm
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Multiple sources have confirmed to Global News that Jason Copping will be appointed as Kenney’s new health minister this afternoon, replacing Tyler Shandro.
Copping is the MLA for Calgary-Varsity and is currently the Minister of Labor and Immigration.
Shandro and Kenney have faced strong criticism for their handling of the COVID-19 crisis that has brought the provincial health system to the brink of collapse.
COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations have skyrocketed for weeks, leading to massive cancellation of surgeries and educating doctors on how to decide, if necessary, who gets life-saving help and who doesn’t.
Kenney also faces an internal backlash from rank and file in his own party and caucuses over his handling of the pandemic.
Alberta’s chief medical officer for health has said the current peak started when Kenney lifted nearly all COVID-19 health restrictions on July 1, faster than any other province.
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Alberta Health confirmed Monday that the province identified 1,605 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday, 1,592 on Saturday and 1,436 on Sunday.
There were 20,614 active cases across the province as of Monday.
16,409 COVID-19 tests were performed on Friday, 16,529 on Saturday, and 13,389 on Sunday.
As of Monday, there were 954 Albertans in the hospital with COVID-19, 216 of whom were in the ICU. For comparison, on Friday, there were 911 Albertans in the hospital with COVID-19, 215 of whom were being treated in the ICU.
Of the 216 ICU patients with COVID-19, 91.2 percent are not vaccinated or incompletely vaccinated, Hinshaw shared on Twitter Monday.
Alberta’s positivity rate stood at around 10.8 percent on Monday.
The death toll from COVID-19 in Alberta has reached 2,545, after adding 22 deaths over the weekend.
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On September 20, Alberta’s version of the vaccine passport, the restriction waiver program, went into effect on nonessential businesses.
The program allows companies that choose to participate to continue operating as usual (with required masks inside) by requiring proof of vaccination from all customers. Those companies that choose not to participate in the REP must comply with operational, capacity and masking restrictions.
Outgoing Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi said the way the province has been communicating changes and approaches to the public health crisis has been “incredibly frustrating for municipalities, it’s incredibly frustrating for businesses that are expected to adopt new rules in the blink of an eye. “
“All of this happens without any consultation with people on the ground,” he said.
“The province has stopped telling everyone what it does, because it does not know what it is doing, it invents it as it goes. So I can watch at the same time as everyone else. “
– With files from The Canadian Press
Reference-globalnews.ca