Premier Kenney says no after Alberta unions call for circuit breaker COVID-19 lockdown
Global News
The leaders of Alberta's largest public and private sector unions are calling for drastic lockdown measures immediately to fight the spiralling COVID-19 Omicron variant.
The leaders of Alberta’s largest public and private sector unions are calling for drastic lockdown measures immediately to fight the spiralling COVID-19 Omicron variant.
The leaders are calling for no in-person service at restaurants and bars, closing theatres and casinos, shuttering gyms, suspending recreational sports, and sending students home to learn online as a last resort.
They say it’s a difficult call but necessary to prevent the rapidly spreading variant from flooding hospitals and overwhelming an exhausted, depleted staff of frontline health workers.
But a spokesman for Premier Jason Kenney says the United Conservative government is following and acting on the scientific data for the Omicron wave and that a lockdown is not being considered.
Alberta Health reports 708 people are in hospital with COVID-19 — a rise of 73 from a day earlier — with 80 of them in intensive care.
There are now well over 58,000 active COVID-19 cases in Alberta but Dr. Deena Hinshaw, the chief medical officer of health, has said the case numbers are low and the actual infections are likely 10 times higher.
The unions made the call for a lockdown in an open letter Tuesday.
The letter is signed by the United Nurses of Alberta, the Alberta Teachers’ Association and the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, which is the largest public sector union in the province.