‘Not about politics’: Immunocompromised Albertan calls on gov’t to keep testing for COVID-19

CALGARY – One of the groups calling for Alberta to change its course when it comes to easing COVID-19 protections is people who are immunocompromised.

Albertans, including several people from the medical community, have been protesting the changes to testing and isolation policies in the province since Dr. Deena Hinshaw announced them at the end of July.

Next week, it will no longer be mandatory for people who have COVID-19 to isolate.

The policy change is quite worrying for people like Elaine Lee, who has brittle bones disease.

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As a result, she is just over two feet tall, under 30 pounds, and has about 19 per cent lung capacity. She’s immunocompromised and susceptible to COVID-19.

She says dropping testing and reporting of cases later this month is disastrous for people in her position.

“I’m only […] the size of a toddler. So I’m the perfect example of why they need to focus on what is important for everybody,” said Lee.

She was met with counterprotesters at McDougall Centre while she was speaking to people rallying against the provincial changes over the weekend.

On Friday, one of our speakers @elaineel_79 was overshouted by the counterprotesters. Here's her original speech. https://t.co/LXQaiX4IHi 3/

— ???????????? ???????????????????????? joseph.vipond@ucalgary.ca (@jvipondmd) August 8, 2021

They tried to drown out her voice with a megaphone.

“They tried to intimate me and assumed just because I’m tiny that I don’t understand anything. But nothing that they were yelling out was constructive at all,” she said.

She told people in the crowd that she was there to speak to everyone, even those who may hate her or what she was saying.

“I was extremely angry. I was disgusted and disappointed, but at the same time I felt empowered.”

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She says some of those comments included calling her stupid or telling her to stay home if she is afraid.

“It’s not about politics. We are all here speaking out because we want to protect everyone and not just ourselves.”

She uses herself as an example for vaccine skeptics.

“I managed to get both doses without any adverse or bad reactions,” she said, adding that the vaccine has given her a sense of “complete relief”.