Thread by @AB_MD_WarRoom

Jason starts this press conference saying he wants to celebrate going to Stage 2. Then he puts up the most useless slide we have ever seen.

He says thanks for getting vaccinated and "welcome to Stage 2". You can now go to your favorite restaurants except Bottega 104 which is only open when it is not supposed to be in order to serve boring assholes breaking rules.

Jason says 67.8% of all Albertans have got their 1st dose which is basically 70% so we can pretty much open Stage 3 because of the new math curriculum.

He says we are starting 2nd doses way earlier than we thought we would and gives a heart felt thanks to Justin Trudeau for making that possible hahahahah no he didn't.

You can book your second dose now if you got your first dose in April which is good and of course he takes all the credit for it.

Jason says 99.99% of all people who got vaccinated had no adverse health effects. All adverse health effects in Alberta are caused by incompetent government and not vaccines.

Jason says he wants to add a personal note.
It's not the thing you thought.
He is talking about friends of his who are antivaxxers and we--like you for sure--are very surprised he has friends who don't believe in vaccines.

Now Shandy is up.
We have to change our color settings. Just a sec.

He is such a great speaker and he has such nice ties.

He quotes the covid tracker website to say Alberta has 16% of people double dosed compared to 11% of the rest of Canada. Weird he doesn't say what the Alberta app says about that.

Shandy thanks everybody who makes Alberta leaders throughout Canada. haha
Then Shandy talks about what everybody tells him about how good vaccine clinics are. Thanks everybody for having those driveway convos with minister tomato. The clinics ARE good

Hinshaw up.
She says she is taking next week off to be with her family and Dr. Andre Coravo will be taking over and will talk to us. He will spend this week getting ready with all the catchy sentences like we are in this together and I am concerned and the stampede will be ok.

She says it remains important to stay distanced and masked and in households as much as possible unless you have 23 year old sub brand whiskey that must be shared.

All the COVID deaths in Alberta were in people with no vaccine or within 2 weeks of first dose.

Hinshaw says second dose gives you 18% jump in protection against B117 which is the dominant strain in Alberta.
Then she talks about snowbird Albertans needing to register their vaccination that they got in the US so it doesn't f up the Best Summer Ever math.

Shandy comes on to thank Dr. Hinshaw's team and it sounds sincere like all the times he says nice things to any doctors

First question from James at Globe/mail is about Keystone XL and Jason face turns into Shandyface color so we don't have to change our monitor settings, ty for that Jay.

"Blah blah blah blah I'm pretty much a lawyer" followed by Waah waah waah.

Next question from Don Braid about the Western Standard article which Jason says is a fabrication from beginning to end. Won't say name of restaurant or website and says his lawyers are coming after them because he only goes to restaurants of Venezuelan socialism refugees.

Don asks if this is all just the knives out because everybody in his caucus hates his ass. Jason says it's only because he is such a good leader who lets his members speak freely that they are able to say what an asshole he is so really this is like a compliment.
wut?

Jason says Alberta is leading the country economically and job growth [and just wait till all those jobs making mini donuts for 10 days for minimum wage].

Alberta is looking at a vaccine lottery. Work is ongoing Jason says. Maybe that will be ready before the vaccine booking website.

Jason says lots of people who haven't got their first dose are young people who don't get COVID anyway (wtf Jay)

Hinshaw says you can still be in the lottery if you already got your vaccine so don't wait. Then they laugh together like those muppet guys in the balcony.

Hinshaw says population protection depends on second doses too....hints that if we don't make it to 70% first doses but get a high level of 2nd doses we can still open.

SOMEONE ASK HER RIGHT NOW WHAT THAT LEVEL OF 2ND DOSES HAS TO BE OR THEY WILL MOVE GOALPOSTS

Now they are talking about pipelines again and Jason calls Notley and Trudeau anti pipeline parties. "We were elected on jobs, economy, pipelines" he says.

Forgets to tell us how many pipelines he has built so far.
Also forgets to tell us how much TC energy exec bonuses were.

also here we are in a COVID presser and the premier is talking about wexiting

Good, reporter is asking what the benchmark is if they are going to give up on a 70% first dose benchmark.
Hinshaw says "well, 70% would be ideal but if 2nd doses are increasing....we don't really have a specific target....we can look at that"
motherf......

Good question about how many of the people infected in the delta variant outbreaks at the foothills hospital were in people who were vaccinated with 1 dose.

Good question buuuuuuut no answer.

Final question from Rick dingaling. "How much unrest is there really in the UCP caucus in your opinion and do you see a threat to your leadership?"

Jason said people driving wedges are asked to leave. Then he lists a bunch of things he's done like they're good but....

includes that f'ed up curriculum
includes suing the federal govt and losing
includes hurting farmers
might have included health care reforms and blowing up mountains but we couldn't hear cuz we were laughing so hard.
What an idiot.

Oh it's over now. We didn't notice because had to change pants because of laughing accident.