Premier Jason Kenney expects a restriction lift by early next week

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has taken to social media to announce that COVID cabinet committee will be approving plans to lift COVID-19 restrictions. Here’s a look at the social media post:

The Premier made the announcement following a live social media Q&A event hosted yesterday. Kenney linked a video clip of the event further explaining the decision.

“Based on the experience of other jurisdictions around the world who got hit by Omicron earlier, we can expect the pressure on our health care system to continue to ease. We are in a much better position to manage future waves of COVID thanks to the 90% of Alberta adults who have received at least a first dose of vaccine, plus more widespread immunity from prior infection and on top of that new antiviral medications,” explained Kenney in the clip.

In the wake of the Omicron variant, Kenney says the effects of the COVID-19 vaccines have been reduced however, he noted that it is still important for Albertans to get vaccinated in order avoid complications with the virus.

The Premier believes damaging restrictions cannot continue to be the province’s main defense against COVID-19 infection.

“Between 1918 and 1920, about 50 million people around the world died from the Spanish flu pandemic. Most of the world, including Alberta—you can look it up in the history books. We all put in place public health restrictions very similar to those that we've had in place in our province, on and off over the past couple of years. With growing population, immunity, and less and less lethal variants, the Spanish flu eventually became endemic. In fact, viral descendants of the Spanish flu continue to circulate and infect us today, but our ancestors learned to live with it, just as we must and will learn to live with COVID-19,” explained Kenney.

At this time, there is no set date for when the announcement to lift restriction will be.