Province will watch data, hospitalization rates as COVID restrictions drop, health minister says

The province is set to ease virtually all of its COVID-19 health restrictions on Tuesday, which means Albertans are preparing to say goodbye to most indoor masking and capacity limits.

Health Minister Jason Copping announced the change on Saturday.

That came less than two weeks after Stage 1 of Alberta's loosening of public health restrictions, which ended measures like the restrictions exemption program on Feb. 14.

Under Step 2, the following will be lifted:

• Remaining school requirements.
• Youth screening for entertainment and sport activities.
• Capacity limits at large and entertainment venues.
• Operating restrictions on restaurants and bars such as liquor services.
• All social gathering limits.
• Mandatory work-from-home requirements.

Indoor masking will no longer be required, except in "higher-risk settings," including public transit, Alberta Health Services facilities and continuing-care settings, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney said.

It comes against a backdrop of the highly transmissible Omicron variant in the province, and as of Monday afternoon, there were 1,224 people in hospital for COVID-19, including 83 in intensive care.

Meanwhile, provincial data shows non-ICU hospitalizations have been generally declining for over two weeks, while the number of ICU admissions has dropped almost 30 per cent in the past week.

Copping stopped by the Calgary Eyeopener on Monday morning to discuss the timing of Stage 2 with guest host Jennifer Keene, and also discussed the Alberta government's plan to catchup on cancelled surgeries — thanks in part to its first surplus budget in eight years.

The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Q: There are still nearly 1,300 people in hospitals with COVID-19. Is it the right time to do this?

A: We believe it is. The numbers that we track very closely, particularly the wastewater and the community numbers, are coming down. Plus, new hospitalizations have been dropping steadily. I appreciate that the numbers in the hospitals take some time to go down, but they will follow.

We also took a good look at data around the world, particularly a number of European countries and other provinces, and we've seen a sharp decline in hospitalizations even after opening.

Now, that's not consistent across the entire world. There are a few exceptions — but those are the exceptions, not the rule. And we're confident that the numbers will continue to keep heading in the right direction.

Q: Are you acting on the advice of health officials?

A: We always greatly respect the advice that we get from health officials. And again, we see these types of changes happening across the country and across the world. We've seen the numbers drop down, and we continue to watch it closely.

Q: Will you reverse your decision, and what metrics would you use to do so, if things start to turn in the other direction?

A: We'll make changes necessary as required. Wastewater will provide an indicator of what's going on in the community. New hospitalizations is a precursor, as we look at the daily rate, in terms of what's going to be impacted. 

We may get a slight bump as we open. That's one of the reasons why we did the staged approach. We opened up some of the measures over three weeks ago, we wanted to watch it before we opened up new measures. We didn't see that bump when we opened up Stage 1. So we're gonna have to be watching very closely about Stage 2.

But also, one of the things that give us some confidence is the high levels of vaccination.

Q: We know so many people had their surgeries delayed. What is the plan to try to speed up and clear that backlog?

A: We're going to be using a combination of increasing capacity within our hospitals and within our chartered surgical facilities.

We're building new operating rooms in at the Foothills Hospital, and this is happening across the province and in the budget.

We have $135 million for building more operating rooms, as well as contracting surgeries to charter and surgical facilities. Because we need, in our entire system, to increase capacity to get caught up. 

Our target, and a commitment that we made when we were elected, is to get the wait list down. We were delayed, unfortunately, by COVID — but that still is our commitment.

It may take us a little longer to get there, but we have an additional $600 million in this budget, from an expense standpoint, and $3.5 billion over the next three years from a capital standpoint, and all that is focused on building capacity, and a good portion of that is focused on reducing the surgery backlog, and ensuring that people can get timely access to surgeries when they need it.

LISTEN | The full interview with Health Minister Jason Copping here:

With files from CBC Edmonton and the Calgary Eyeopener