CALGARY — Another expert is reacting to the province’s decision to end public health measures such as testing, contact tracing, and mandatory isolation by mid-August.
John Church is a political science professor at the University Of Alberta with extensive research in health policy. He says Dr. Deena Hinshaw’s reasoning that we should be paying attention to other health risks besides COVID-19 makes no sense and he uses flu season as an example.
“No, it’s not good reasoning at all,” said Church.
“When we were dealing with the flu season last year, we actually had significant public health measures in place that work for COVID and for the regular flu.”
Church says the decision also doesn’t make sense from a financial perspective.
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“It’s going to cost the healthcare system additional money if they have a lot of sick people arriving at their doorway,” Church said.
“Even if they haven’t been clearly diagnosed with COVID, it won’t be very hard to determine that they have contracted COVID.”
Church also says the UCP is running the risk of losing support with this decision.
“It’s a recipe for disaster, and somebody has to exercise moral leadership here,” Church said.
“The government may be able to play footsie with the law so they can get themselves into a position where legally they can do what they’re doing — but morally — they are on a pretty slippery slope at this point, in terms of their obligation to keep the public safe.”
