67 doctors sign open letter against Alberta’s final COVID-19 task force report
By Ashita Karim, February 25 2025—
Five years after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the healthcare response to the deadly virus continues to shape how Albertans may access immunization and disease prevention services now and in the future.
The Alberta COVID-19 Pandemic Data Review Task Force: Final Report takes a ‘contrarian’ perspective on the province’s responses, in addition to offering future disease control recommendations. Commissioned by Premiere Danielle Smith, the report was published on the Alberta government website on Jan. 20.
The 267-page report, released online on a Friday night, outlines nine chapters evaluating the province’s past COVID-19 response, including vaccination, masking, infection acquired immunity and alternative therapeutics. Each chapter contains a summary at its premise outlining the findings, recommendations and concerns the task force had with the province’s pandemic response.
In response, 67 Albertan professors, researchers and doctors authored an open letter to the Premiere, the Minister of Health and the members of the Alberta legislative assembly outlining their collective request to dismiss the report as a source of information for public and provincial policy as it “inaccurately reflects the body of scientific evidence.”
In terms of vaccination, the report recommends halting the use of COVID-19 vaccines without disclosing potential risks to patients, providing an opt-out choice for vaccinations from public federal health policy and finally “ending their use in healthy children and teenagers.”
The report also dedicates a chapter for looking into the merit in infection-acquired immunity — that is, immunity gained through catching a virus and going through the disease as opposed to gaining artificial immunity through vaccination.
The report also outlines the ineffectiveness of ‘non-pharmaceutical interventions’ referred in the report as ‘NPIs” — including social distancing and lockdowns.
“NPIs as a tool to manage the COVID-19 pandemic were less effective and had more collateral consequences on Albertans and the economy than anticipated,” reads a statement from the report.
In response, the open letter signed by dozens of Albertan health specialists outline that in contrast to the report’s findings.
“large amounts of evidence is available about the benefits and risks associated with COVID-19 vaccines, and the evidence strongly favours vaccination as a preventative measure,” reads a statement from the letter.
The letter goes on to comment on concerns of choice being removed from Albertans that desire vaccine immunization for themselves or their families.
The greatest take-away of the open letter lies in the authors’ advocacy for the use of current and supported scientific evidence in public health policy — something they believe is absent from the two million dollar task force report.
Dr. Craig Jenne, a professor in microbiology, immunology and infectious diseases at the University of Calgary is a co-author of the open letter. He expressed that his first reaction to the report was concern.
“Discourse is important. We do need to consider alternative views and all views. But at the end of the day when we look at the data, we do have to appreciate that not all views are as supported by facts, not all pieces of evidence are of the same quality or the same weight,” he said.
He puts the risk of COVID-19 to Albertans into perspective.
“If we look at the numbers last year, we still lost 800 Albertans to this infection…prior to COVID, the most common cause of death from infectious disease in Canada was influenza, and Alberta’s record for influenza [death] before COVID was a little over 100 in a year.”
Jenne states the report poses a threat to the Albertan healthcare system due to its vaccine and therapeutic alternatives recommendations — a threat that would affect Albertans everywhere.
He comments that many of the references for these sections are absent from peer-review or even reference retracted papers.
In terms of halting the vaccination of children and teenagers, Jenne emphasizes that while the risk to children is lower in comparison to other groups, it is not zero.
“Kids themselves are also the vehicle to give the virus to other people around them…whether that be an immunocompromised sibling, a parent, an elderly grandparent or somebody at daycare that has a health condition,” he said.
With the contrasting views of the report and open letter creating grounds for public confusion and distrust.
“Many of the contributors of this report had stated a distrust in vaccines or in the overall COVID response. So it’s perhaps not surprising that the narrative or the message out of the report is one that is strongly opposed to vaccination,” said Jenne.
Jenne urges the use of informed data for governments and Albertans. He advocates self-research using accessible public documents backed by peer-reviewed research, such as the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI).
When making choices about one’s health, Jenne recommends talking to your doctor, whether that be someone at the student health services at campus or a family doctor.
“If you ask questions, almost all primary care providers want to chat, want to engage, want to help inform you of [vaccines], how does it work, what are the risks,” he said.
With the COVID-19 pandemic’s initiation beginning five years ago, researched scientific analysis is key in developing health-care practices and policies for future disease control and prevention.
More information on the task force’s final report can be found on the Alberta Government’s website under publications.
The complete open letter can be found on CBC News.