UPDATED: An emergency response gets derailed and a bicycle video as your reward at the end
A long read about our emergency management of the pandemic
On Thursday of this past week, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney held a news conference. I didn’t watch it. At least not as it was happening. Like a lot of people, I find them frustrating, disturbing, and sometimes, I even feel nauseous.
But, after I’ve read the comments on social media to prepare myself for the worst, I can usually watch parts of the recorded news conference on YouTube. I wanted to review what was said because I’ve been thinking a lot about the state of our emergency management system in Alberta.
I’m not one for nostalgia or sentimentality, but I really do miss the days when emergencies were managed by people who’ve put a lot of thought into emergency response, trained and practiced responding to emergencies and actually had their priorities right.
What we have now in Alberta is a slow moving and long-lasting emergency being managed by people who have put zero thought into responding, have no training in emergencies and whose priorities are completely wrong.
In the training for emergency management, one of the first things you learn is the importance of prioritization in a crisis. Top of the list is “life safety,” which doesn’t mean the other categories are not going to be addressed, it does mean that where human life or safety is in danger, the emergency response should consider first what needs to be done to preserve life.
That priority doesn’t change because the incident goes on for a long time, months or even years, despite what the UCP government would have you believe.
Next is incident stabilization, which is sometimes essential for life safety. It involves understanding and doing what is necessary to prevent the situation from getting worse. This is an area where the Alberta government has a particularly dismal record. Remember #BestSummerEver?
Then, there are considerations of property/environment protection. There are supply chain issues to consider in this realm. Programs like protection from evictions become essential if a crisis continues for months and years.
In larger emergencies, such as the pandemic, the economy does come into the picture. But not as a catch-all reason to endanger life directly. There may be indirect harms with a slowing economy but this should be weighed against the direct harm caused by having a “business as usual” mentality.
Since this pandemic has been going on for so long, it appears the focus on saving lives has slipped. Now, it seems like it has become more acceptable to sacrifice lives for the economy, something that should never happen.
This latest news conference was just another painful reminder of how far our emergency management capabilities have fallen. Again, crisis communication is a skill that people can be trained in. It’s part of preparing for an emergency. There are experts who can provide advice and coaching.
Clearly, neither the premier, the health minister, nor the Chief Medical Officer of Health have been properly trained, or maybe they are not open to learning.
Here are a couple of gems:
Based on wastewater testing, Kenney said, “the good news is that there are some early indications that Alberta has reached and surpassed the peak of infections in our province.” Translation: a lot of people are already infected with the virus and it may be running out of people to infect – hardly good news. This is a premier grasping at any straw and disconnected from reality.
He then went on to draw a distinction between the number of people being admitted “for COVID” as opposed to “with COVID” as if to suggest this was an important distinction. He explained the record number of people admitted to hospital have been categorized according to this new system.
According to Kenney, having 45% of the patients admitted to hospital (non-ICU) with COVID instead of for COVID is “good news.” About 40% were admitted for other things and then tested positive for COVID. No one is seriously considering this good news, Premier. We’re not buying this hair-splitting.
Is it just me or is anyone else visualizing the prep meetings for these news conferences? I can see Kenney instructing his staff to come up with the positive spin on these totally devastating numbers. Do any of them really think they are doing the public a service with this claptrap?
He then spoke cheerfully about more good news:
“We’ve been quite stable at around 6,300 total non-ICU patients in Alberta’s 100 hospitals…and that has been pretty stable for the past week or 10 days.” Shockingly, this is about 89% of average total capacity, a dangerously high load on hospitals and a tremendous drain on healthcare workers. And in Calgary, for example, the hospitals are much closer to 100% full.
We see how you’re manipulating numbers here and we don’t like it. Six thousand and three hundred sick people in hospital is not good news.
Providing a source of optimism is an important aspect of crisis communication, but this does not mean trying to convince people that an inherently bad thing is good. This is “gaslighting,” a type of manipulation used to try and convince a person that something is the opposite of what it is, causing you to question your own beliefs or sanity.
The really aggravating aspect is the people who’ve got experience responding to emergencies have been pushed aside and relegated to a diminished advisory role. They are so far away from any meaningful decision-making that it has become normalized for those emergency response experts to state publicly in the midst of an emergency, “decisions about this are not mine to make.”
In fact, those same medical experts have been made to believe they don’t even have to share their expert advice with the public, even though they are paid by the public to serve the public’s best interests.
Imagine any other emergency being handled in the way the UCP government is handling this pandemic, which is a major public health emergency.
A fictional training scenario – not involving a comet
Consider a fictional scenario, often used by emergency responders training for various possible crisis situations – a train derailment in the middle of a large Alberta city.
Let’s say the train was carrying a toxic chemical and the chemical started slowly leaking out, possibly poisoning those who lived nearby. There is some small number of people who died in the derailment, a few more people were trapped in the wreckage and whole neighbourhood was at risk of poisoning.
Let’s apply the COVID-19 pandemic approach to this fictional emergency for comparison sake.
Would we accept the following:
The premier decides to create a committee of cabinet ministers to decide what to do about the unfolding tragedy. Experts on train derailments and toxic chemicals are asked to step aside and prepare recommendations only. (command system – major fail)
The experts are told not to speak publicly about their recommendations. And the discussions in the derailment committee meetings are kept completely secret. (communication fail)
People can’t see the chemical since it is invisible to the naked eye, so a conspiracy theory emerges about it being a hoax. A protest movement grows, rebelling against restrictions. Some members of the premier’s own party/government express belief in the chemical being a hoax. (leadership fail)
The premier and his derailment committee announce the mental stress of people not being able to live their normal lives, must be “balanced” against the risk to human health from the slow-leaking poison. (prioritization fail)
The premier and cabinet are undeterred by the danger from the toxic chemical and decided to start lifting evacuation orders and encouraged people to visit businesses in the area, despite the risks. (operational fail)
True to their role as advisors to derailment decision-makers, the medical experts repeatedly refuse to comment publicly about the safety of such orders. (communication fail)
Hospitals are overwhelmed, seeing an increasing number of patients seriously ill from the toxic chemical. The government says Albertans must “learn to live” with the toxic chemical. (operational fail)
As time passes and the chemical continues to leak, the government announces plans to protect only those at most risk. All others are encouraged to return to their normal lives as the poisonous chemical continues to slowly spread. (operational fail)
New research suggests better ways of dealing with the toxic chemical but due to the expense involved in purchasing the new type of personal protective equipment, the premier and the derailment cabinet balk at the cost. (ethical fail)
Emergency responders are getting injured by exposure to the toxin and experience trauma and burn-out due to the constant effort to treat new victims. There are shortages of healthcare workers as more became sick or leave the profession. (operational fail)
The premier holds infrequent news conferences to update on the toxic chemical but limits a small number of the journalists to asking only a handful of questions about the response (communication fail).
Children are sent back to school with minimal protection from the toxic chemical. The premier and the derailment cabinet say the risk is low for them to become seriously ill. (ethical fail)
A prominent medical expert advising the committee takes weeks to provide evidence for decisions, then uses outdated research and anecdotal evidence to justify sending children back to school. (leadership fail)
With an election looming, the government loosens rules around election donations. This allows money to flow into party coffers from the businesses whose interests they had served by lifting restrictions. (ethical fail)
The correct answer is “no, hell no.”
Sadly, the train derailment exercise described theoretically above, parallels what has happened with the COVID-19 pandemic.
We need to get back to having emergency response decisions made by people who are trained, competent and who know how to prioritize human lives in a crisis. Politicians are the worst people to be managing an emergency and that’s why they were not directly involved in the past.
Previously, the response was guided by the experts and the elected officials were kept informed. They expressed confidence in those tasked with managing the crisis, offered assurances and worked to instill confidence in the system. They may act as spokespeople but are kept at arms-length from the operational response through an incident command structure.
If things went badly, they humbly took responsibility, knowing the experts had done the best they could under the circumstances. Afterwards, their role was to ensure there was a “lessons learned” activity to identify ways to improve and as leaders, they gave support for any needed changes. The system was not perfect, but it did give a tried and true framework for the response.
Unfortunately for us, this pandemic has stretched the limits of our emergency management system and something has snapped. The decision to put the politicians in charge started a chain reaction of bad decisions from almost the beginning.
It has become an absolute disaster of a response in the hands of Kenney. And this is not a drill.
******************************************************************
In case you missed it, I’m focusing the newsletter now on some recurring themes and issues of personal importance – climate change, anti-racism, truth and reconciliation, wealth inequality, LGBTQ2S+ rights, harm reduction, democracy, education and the pandemic. Just a few of the lighter topics.
For my paid subscribers, I’ll continue to provide insights into topics I’m researching and writing about for other venues, including my freelance work focused on energy and environmental news.
Read my latest article for The Energy Mix on a company named Link Global Technologies that has made a pretty big impression on Alberta’s government regulators this past year – and not in a good way.
The Vancouver-based company has seen the value of its shares plummet since starting up power generators for bitcoin mining data centres at three locations without any government approvals.
Initial penalties of $7M CDN have been recommended by the Alberta Utilities Commission. A hearing is coming soon as the company makes its case for a reduction in that amount.
In a new update coming soon, my paid subscribers will have access to some of the behind-the-scenes research done on this story that didn’t make the final online version.
You can sign up for a free or a paid subscription - either way - I appreciate having you read my newsletter!
And finally, a short, seven-minute film by Chris McCoy & Adam Neustadter about life, rebirth and being painted a f*cking horrible colour – starring – a bicycle.