The Alberta Medical Association (AMA) has released a scathing assessment of the COVID-19 task force commissioned by the province for a response into how they handled the pandemic.
The 268-page report, commissioned by the UCP government, and produced by a 13-member task force, including some outspoken critics of public health measures used to control the pandemic, was quietly published on an Alberta government website, Friday afternoon (Jan 24, 2025).
It makes a long list of recommendations to the Alberta government, including an immediate halt in the use of COVID-19 vaccines, an end to mask mandates and promotes the use of herd immunity and the use of alternative treatments such as ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine to control virus outbreaks.
So far the province has not made any decisions and is currently reviewing the report.
AMA president Dr. Shelly Duggan, who is a critical care specialist based in Edmonton, called the report in a statement “anti-science and anti-evidence” and said if implemented the recommendations “have potential to cause real harm.”
Duggan also credits the “preventative public health measures” implemented during the pandemic for saving “millions of lives” and accuses the report authors of advancing “misinformation” and sowing “distrust” against “the broadest and most diligent international scientific collaboration and consensus in history.”
A former Alberta Chief Medical Officer of Health says there has been billions of doses of the Covid vaccine administered worldwide and the data shows it is very safe and very effective.
Global News
“My first thought was that if an undergraduate student produced this report, I would give them an F for fail,” said Dr. James Talbot, who served as Alberta’s Chief Medical Officer of Health between 2012 and 2015.
Get weekly health news
“Everybody (who) lived through COVID knows the data that was used, it had to do with the number of people who were dying from COVID each day, the number of people who were hospitalized, those that were in emerg departments, those who were in ICU, later on the number of people who were being immunized, the number of people who were being tested who were positive and then when COVID was out of control and threatening to bring down the health care system we looked at things like whether or not surgeries had to be cancelled, whether people’s cancer diagnosis and treatment was being delayed and how many health care workers were out or seriously ill or worse dying because of COVID, and there’s virtually no mention of that in the report.”
“The other big one is this continuing discussion about the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine — I mean, this is a vaccine that’s literally we’ve given billions of doses,” said Talbot. “We have better data on this vaccine than we had any vaccine in history. And we know that it’s very safe and very effective.”
While the Alberta government says it will review and consider the report and its findings, Alberta’s NDP leader says the $2 million spent on it was a waste of money.
Global News
Premier Danielle Smith gave the task force a budget of $2 million, money Alberta’s official opposition believes could have been better spent elsewhere.
“If you’re keeping track, $2 million would have funded orthopedic surgeries at the Royal Alex Hospital (in Edmonton) for eight years,” said NDP leader Naheed Nenshi.
Global News reached out to the Alberta government again on Monday for its response to the report.
We asked how long it typically takes to review a report and come up with decisions on whether to implement recommendations.
Global News also asked if the government has ruled out any of the reports recommendations.
We were referred to a prior statement from the health minister’s office which said the, “Alberta government will review and consider this report and its findings, however, no policy decisions have been made in relation to it at this time.”
