Alberta physicians urge province to release COVID-19 case modelling

Two Alberta physicians who have raised the alarm on the province's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic are urging the government to release its case modelling projections. 

Dr. James Talbot, Alberta's former chief medical officer of health, and Dr. Noel Gibney, professor emeritus at the University of Alberta school of medicine and a critical care specialist, said in an open letter on Friday that Albertans deserve to see the information the province is using to justify its resistance to stricter public health restrictions. 

"Like most Albertans, we would like to know how long the fourth wave is going to last, how many more Albertans are projected to die and when we can expect elective surgeries to begin and ICUs to return to normal," the letter says.

"We believe Albertans should demand to see the data, the assumptions and the modelling used to make the decision to continue to do nothing."

The province is in the grip of a deadly fourth wave of COVID-19 that forced the government to seek assistance from the military, Red Cross and other provinces. 

ICUs are overwhelmed and new records for hospitalizations are set regularly. On Friday, there were 1,066 patients with COVID are in hospital, with 263 in ICU. 

Gibney, Talbot and many other physicians are urging Alberta to impose a three or four-week "firebreak", where all but essential businesses are closed to stop the spread of the virus.