SUNDRE - With COVID-19 vaccination rates in rural Alberta continuing to trail rates in large urban centres, Sundre-area MLA and UCP cabinet minister Jason Nixon is encouraging more area resident to get the shots.
“The reality is that the success rate of vaccination as far as preventing ICU (admissions), death and significant adverse affects on Albertans is well documented over the last year and it is certainly the best way to keep yourself safe during the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Nixon.
Asked if he is encouraging area residents to get the vaccine, he said, “Yes, one hundred per cent. That is the best way to protect yourself during COVID-19.”
Although rural rates have increased in recent weeks, they are still well below large urban centres, according to Alberta Health Services statistics.
For example, as of Oct. 26, an average of 66 per cent of residents in the Olds, Didsbury, Sundre and Innisfail local geographic areas had had at least one dose, while in Calgary the rate was 77 per cent.
In an Albertan interview as the new session of the legislature got underway last week, Government House Leader Nixon said, “There’s no legislation that is anticipated in the legislature around vaccines but the health department continues to work to get Albertans vaccinated, to provide that service.
“That will continue on just as it was before, but there is nothing that has been asked for within the legislature itself as far as legislation.”
Asked what local residents have been telling him when it comes to deciding not to be vaccinated, he said, “There is a variety of reasons why people have indicated to me of why they chose not to get vaccinated and those have been well expressed, both in person and on social media.”
Nixon’s comments came as the UPC government rejected an Alberta NDP call for the establishment of a Select Special Committee on the province’s COVID-19 response.
The committee would have included government, Opposition and independent MLAs, and would have been empowered to compel political staff, public servants and third-party witnesses, as well as compel documents from government ministries, said NDP leader Rachel Notley.
“Albertans deserve accountability from their government,” said Notley. “They are demanding justice and they deserve answers. The UCP government keeps making the same deadly mistakes over and over, and has steered Alberta into a preventable public health emergency with devastating consequences.
“After everything Albertans have been through during this deadly fourth wave of the pandemic, they deserve to know just how this crisis came about and why our fourth wave has been so much worse than anywhere else in Canada.”
Nixon called the NDP proposal for an all-party committee unreasonable.
“We do not support the NDP trying to divert health resources at the very moment the hospitals need health officials to be focused on making sure there is capacity for people in hospital,” said Nixon.
“At a moment when we are looking at surgeries being cancelled as we manage his pandemic, what the NDP is asking for would make that even worse and would divert heath professionals from helping people to come up to Edmonton to answer politicians’ questions. There will be a time for that, but this is not that time.”
Asked if a government-sanctioned review could come after the pandemic is over, he said, “I don’t think the time will be when the pandemic is over because we don’t know how long COVID-19 will be with us. It certainly will not be in the middle of a wave. The minister of Health has made it clear that he will outline what that process will look like very shortly.
“There will be a debate in the legislature to discuss COVID (this week). It will be live on TV. There will be, and I support, a full review of the COVID situation. That has been committed to by the health department and they will unveil how that will go forward.”
Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta chief medical officer of health, said Oct. 26 that 87.3 per cent of COVID-19 patients in Alberta ICU units were not fully vaccinated.
