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2023 ABKB 453 (CanLII) | Ingram v #Alberta (#ChiefMedicalOfficerofHealth) | https://www.canlii.org/en/ab/abkb/doc/2023/2023abkb453/2023abkb453.html
“had the impugned Orders been validly enacted by the #CMOH, they would not have been unconstitutional. While they may have infringed certain of the Applicants’ rights under the #CanadianCharter these limitations were amply and demonstrably justified as reasonable limits in a free and democratic society pursuant to section 1 and that they were enacted pursuant to a valid legislative purpose.”
Key point (from Dr Hinshaw).
“ In wave 2, we took a different approach to encourage people to limit the number of people that they spent time with, we tried targeted geographic approaches and ultimately needed to resort to mandatory measures because these voluntary approaches didn’t work.”
If the very people who brought this action had _voluntarily_ complied, then mandates would have been unnecessary.
“And so, if you look at our actual lived experience in Alberta, if you look at wave 1 and wave 2, it is crystal clear that the non-pharmaceutical nterventions #NPI implemented in wave 1 dramatically reduced mortality and #hospital impact, and that delaying the implementation of those measures until the wave was already significantly established in wave 2,
“again for very important reasons of ensuring that we were exhausting all other possible avenues of response before resorting to mandatory measures: the death toll of wave 2 was dramatically higher than wave 1. Wave 2 came very close to overwhelming our health care system even though our measures minimized the spread and minimized the overall impact,”
“So, I actually think that it’s very easy to look at our own lived experience in those two waves and see very clearly the impact that non-pharmaceutical interventions had, and I think we can also compare our own experience to neighbouring jurisdictions to be able to see the outcomes that were different based on when #NPIs were introduced and to what degree.”
“As indicated previously, Dr. #Hinshaw was a credible witness. She was calm, patient, well-informed and extremely professional, even in the face of somewhat abusive cross-examination. The cross-examination did not affect her credibility in any way.”
Where non-evidence based opinion comes up against fact “The Applicants submit modelling is speculative and has been shown to be unreliable.
[291] However, Dr. Simmonds explained that Alberta’s modelling accurately predicted uncontrollable spread as observed in the real-world experience in wave 2 of the pandemic , as shown in Alberta’s fall predictions.”
“... so if we have 4.5 million people in the province and we’re going to estimate 0.5 percent of them, plus then consider in the number of who have severe illness, that would be equivalent to essentially wiping out a town the size of Red Deer in terms of morbidity and mortality. I personally consider that a significant risk.”
Denominators matter.
More “the facts don’t care about opinions”. The Applicants submit that Alberta produced no data to support the theoretical models developed by Dr. Simmonds. However, Dr. Simmonds’ evidence indicates that modelling accurately predicted the course of the pandemic in Alberta to a high degree.”
“The Applicants also submit that there was a lack of validation testing. The response to this criticism is found in Dr. Kindrachuk’s evidence about the possibility of validation testing during a pandemic. The Applicants also suggestion that “the entire concept of a “super spreader event” has no objective scientific basis. This was contradicted by Dr. @KindrachukJason evidence.”
“The Applicants also submit that there was a lack of validation testing. The response to this criticism is found in Dr. Kindrachuk’s evidence about the possibility of validation testing during a pandemic. The Applicants also suggestion that “the entire concept of a “super spreader event” has no objective scientific basis. This was contradicted by Dr. @KindrachukJason evidence.”
“Dr. @KindrachukJason reviewed the results of a number of studies that show #FaceMasks are associated with a significant reduction in transmission risk per contact and reduced infections. Dr. Kindrachuk’s opinion was that #NPIs are “extremely effective in reducing the spread of #SARSCoV2 in a population, especially when used in combination, and are indeed necessary to limit exponential spread”.