Premier pleads with Albertans to be responsible as Thanksgiving weekend approaches

CALGARY — We’re heading into the Thanksgiving long weekend and Alberta is still in the midst of a public health crisis.

Workers are struggling to maintain themselves, hospitals are barely keeping it together, and thousands of new cases are piling on each day.

Premier Jason Kenney is pleading with the province to avoid the same situation as last year. He says the second wave was started very clearly around the dinner table over the long weekend in 2020, and, hoping to dodge a similar spike in cases, he’s relying on people to behave themselves.

Kenney is reminding anyone that is unvaccinated, they can not gather for the holiday, and those who are vaccinated should limit their household gatherings to two families.

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He also says there will be penalties and fines for anyone found breaking the rules, but the province won’t be cracking down and micromanaging where everyone is spending their holiday time.

“We are not going to have a police officer on every street corner checking peoples papers, to see if they’re going to their own home or visiting someone else,” Kenney said.

He also says the province’s COVID numbers are finally starting to trend in the right direction, but it won’t hold that way very long.

“Those gains are very tentative,” Kenney said. “They could all be lost overnight, this weekend, if Albertans do not carefully follow the public health guidelines that we have put in place to protect our healthcare system.”

He says don’t look at the recent positive data and think that it’s a license to ignore public health guidelines and restrictions. Kenney says enforcement agencies are in place to ensure compliance, but the province simply doesn’t have the capacity to track 4.5 million Albertans.

As of the province’s latest update, 1,094 people are hospitalized with the virus, and 248 of them are in the ICU.