Thread by @sunnshiiny

Alberta is in quite a pickle. Covid is raging and there is little being done to mitigate the disease. More than before, but still insufficient.

We remain the highest case load in Canada by far.

https://twitter.com/kevinctv/status/1394777312478912513

Many have commented on the performance of Dr. Deena Hinshaw.

Some have even called her complicit with UCP agenda.

I don’t believe that’s accurate.

I believe she is providing information to the public the only way she can without being fired.

Some will assess that situation as cowardly. Criticizing her for not speaking truth to the public and taking matters into her own hands by declaring a lockdown.

To those people, I challenge you to walk a mile in her shoes.

She’s a highly trained expert physician. Her mandate is the public’s health and welfare. But the government in power is doing everything it can to prevent her from fulfilling her responsibilities.

She could choose to warn the public and reveal the behind the scenes facts.

If she does reveal confidential information, she would be fired immediately and replaced by a lackey who is willing to do the government’s bidding unquestioned.

And if you don’t think it can get worse, go back and look at New York, South Dakota and California.

It could be much much worse.

Dr. Hinshaw also has the option of influencing official policy towards the best options. This is what I believe she has been doing up to this point. Providing options with details of the expected outcomes. Heavily emphasizing best practices.

But the past 14 months we have witnessed UCP repeatedly undersell the dangers of covid, apply inadequate restrictions and lift restrictions way too soon.

Strangely enough, the measure the government has chosen is hospital capacity to gauge success in policy.

Not lives lost or reduced cases of disease, but the capacity of hospitals to cope with the devastation of covid.

It’s like running a motor at maximum capacity until the engine threatens to break down. Then easing off temporarily to cool down. Then back to maximum capacity.

This produces burnout and severely shortens the life of the motor.

Another analogy would be an athlete pushed by a coach to train relentlessly. 12-14 hours per day, every day of the week, 365 days a year.

Eventually, exhaustion kicks in.

Right before the athlete collapses from muscle strain and exhaustion, the coach reduces the hours to 8-10 hours per day with one day of rest. When the athlete partially recovers, back to the grind of 12-14 hour days with no breaks.

That’s how you burn out an athlete, destroy a motor, overwhelm a healthcare system.

Run it ragged until it collapses and can no longer operate at full capacity.

Dr. Hinshaw has gone along with this effort. But, she wasn’t really given a choice.

She is contractually obligated to support the government in power. She does not have the authority to act independently without severe consequences. Like losing her job. And losing any ability to shape public health policy.

Again, anyone who believes she should have taken the high road, hasn’t really thought this through. The moment she takes the high road, she’s done. That would be her last act as CMOH. And Alberta would become like New York state in April 2020, with refrigerated trucks as morgues.

Potters field burials, people dying at home unable to get healthcare, triage of patients to pick and choose who gets help and who is left to die.

Alberta has not experienced this level of catastrophe, yet. So far the mitigation of covid has avoided actual healthcare collapse.

One look at India and the prospect is terrifying. Bodies dumped in the Ganges, people dying in the streets, lack of oxygen for hospitals. Complete chaos.

Dr. Hinshaw has managed to avoid that outcome in Alberta through influencing UCP behind the scenes.

However, after the third wave began in March 2021, brought on by the variants that are more contagious, more deadly and allowed to firmly establish community transmission, UCP refused to act while covid’s new variants spread unchecked in Alberta replacing the original variant.

Many forget First Nations Chief Adam Allan making a plea for intervention in April 2021. He reported that UCP refused (yes REFUSED) to make any changes to restrictions while people were being sent home without healthcare by a hospital overwhelmed with covid patients.

It’s always been a curiosity to me that upon learning such damning information, most people’s reaction is disbelief and denial.

A leader in Northern Alberta, accompanied by several other leaders and the mayor of Fort McMurray declared a local emergency.

Because the provincial government refused to assist the regional municipality when it desperately asked for help.

UCP had no plans to help RMWB until the Chiefs of FN communities and the mayor of Ft. Mac went public.

UCP planned to let the virus run its course across the province. But provincial public and federal government pushback after leaders in RMWB revealed the plan, changed those plans and new restrictions were ordered.

Whatever influence Dr. Hinshaw had with UCP has eroded.

So there is a third option available to a CMOH incapable of speaking truth and blocked from doing her job.

That option is to provide completely inaccurate information and direction in a public forum.

That action was taken when Dr. Hinshaw’s update was filled with completely inaccurate information about schools.

Return to open schools is an act of homicidal negligence. I’m not exaggerating.

Covid is airborne. The new variants are able to spread easier regardless of masks.

People are still able to contract and spread the new variants, even with partial vaccination. That includes children, who still remain overwhelmingly asymptomatic.

Dr. Hinshaw knows this. Her expertise in public health is excellent. She has access to all relevant research.

So ask yourself, honestly ask yourself, why would she tell the public that schools are not a source of transmission, when several peer reviewed studies published in the last 9 months say otherwise?

Why lie so egregiously?

Her statements were easily proven false.

Did she communicate the level of diabolically sadistic decisions of the UCP government by providing clearly false information to the public?

I believe she did.

Her response to Kenney’s recent decisions will be interesting to observe.

We truly are living in Orwellian 1984.

We can’t trust our provincial government.

We can’t trust the institutional leaders to provide accurate information about the public’s health.

We can’t trust the media to report accurate information.

We can only rely on our own eyes and ears and our own ability to filter truth from fiction. Aided by our ability to discern scientific truth documented in publicly available research.

Relying on kindred citizens for info and support.

We truly are living in dystopian horror.

Observing our descent into dystopian existence has been difficult. Especially since many haven’t recognized how bad it is.

I could never have predicted it would be so easy to persuade so many to normalize UCP’s policies.