EDMONTON — After more than a year of online remote learning, students and staff are slowly trickling back onto the University of Alberta campus.

Hundreds of students, faculty, and staff have signed an open letter requesting that the province’s largest university implement mandatory vaccinations and masking as the campus plans to return to mostly in-person learning this fall.

The letter, addressed to university administration, cites the need for these measures as the Delta variant has “changed the game,” as it is more transmissible. They want the university to institute rapid testing and also share ventilation and filtration data to help ensure classrooms and lecture halls are safe for students and staff.

“The very last thing any of us would like to see if for students, faculty, and staff to fall ill and force us to pivot back online,” it read.

“We also do not want our community to be the cause of additional stress on our healthcare system.”

Without those measures, “campus shutdowns are inevitable,” the group says.

WE WANT A CAREFUL APPROACH: STUDENTS’ UNION

Computer science professor Nelson Amaral and one of the letter’s signatories said the U of A should follow the example of leading universities across the border in mandating campus-wide vaccines.

“A number of leading universities in the U.S. are mandating vaccines because of the easy propagation of the delta variant,” Amaral said.

The professor said that while mandatory vaccination was not always considered the best option for the return to campus, the recent announcement of changes in COVID-19 contact tracing and testing for Alberta has changed many faculty members’ minds.

“I think it is time for us to reconsider for us to reconsider what we are doing,” Amaral said.

“For students who will be in massive classrooms and moving from one large classroom to another, I think that will be important,” he added. “The university environment is the perfect environment to propagate an airborne virus, given the dynamic interactions between people.”

Rowan Ley, University of Alberta Students’ Union president, said while the vast majority of students want to return to in-person learning and ditch Zoom classes for good, there needs to be protections in place for campus safety.

“Our main priority in the fall is making sure that we all come back to campus, because we are all sick of online learning, but that we do it in a way that is safe,” Rowan said.

“There’s no benefit to us risking it all and jumping into unvaccinated, unmasked classes,” he told CTV News Edmonton.

Representing more than 30,000 undergraduate students, Ley said there needs to be more protections in place for students – especially in high-risk areas of COVID-19 transmission, like students living in residences.

“What we want to see is a careful, cautious, and deliberate approach,” he added.

The International Students’ Association (ISA) says it wants more classes offered online and supports so that students not living in Canada can continue to progress in their studies as many travel restrictions remain.

“The University as a whole need to be better prepared for Fall 2021,” ISA president Chanpreet Singh said in a statement.

MANDATORY VACCINES FOR THOSE IN RESIDENCE

The Students’ Union would like the university to consider vaccine mandates for those living in residence.

“Living in residence is extremely high risk,” Ley said. “You have thousands of people packed into densely populated buildings, sharing bathrooms and cafeterias. An outbreak in residence could travel very quickly and spread very far.”

Concordia University of Edmonton is mandating mandatory immunizations for those choosing to live in one of their residences. The University of Ottawa has taken a similar approach while Seneca College in Toronto is making vaccines mandatory for anyone “teaching, learning and working” on campus.

The provincial government in Alberta is opposed to mandating campus-wide immunizations and says there is no mechanism to do so.

“I would have concern if there were opportunities,” Health Minister Tyler Shandro said, “to compel people to release their personal health information.”

Ley said many students have indicated that even though they are fully vaccinated, they want absolute safety from COVID-19 by having masks and a campus-wide vaccine mandate to ensure those who are or live with someone who is immunocompromised are protected.

“In the interest of making sure everyone feels safe on campus and making sure this is an inclusive and safe place to be, if we all need to get vaccinated and wear masks just a little bit longer, then that is the right thing to do to make sure we can all feel safe.”

Alejandro Alvarez, a master’s student at the U of A, believes mandatory vaccines should be implemented to protect students and faculty.

“I personally think it would be nice to be mandatory,” he said with specific exceptions for religious or health reason. “For most people it should be mandatory to keep this herd immunity, especially within the U of A, to keep it pretty safe.

“I’m nervous just in terms of cases to see how fast they rise, especially with the new Delta variant,” he added.

For student Kala Reid, she plans to wear a mask if cases continue to rise.

“Ultimately, when it comes down to it, what is better for the community as a whole is definitely more important,” Reid said. 

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Touria Izri

EDMONTON — COVID-19 hospitalizations exceeded the 100 mark on Thursday as Alberta saw the biggest one-day jump in cases in two months.

One more Albertan died after contracting coronavirus, increasing the province’s death toll to 2,329.

There are 102 people in hospital with COVID-19, 24 of whom are in ICU.

Vaccination rates for eligible Albertans sit at 76.2 per cent for first doses and 66.2 per cent for second doses.

Alberta’s active case count increased to 2,526 cases after it added 397 cases a day earlier. The positivity rate is 5.3 per cent after Alberta Health Services conducted nearly 7,500 tests on Wednesday.

The large majority of Alberta’s active cases are in the Calgary zone with 1,351. The Edmonton zone has 469 infections.

CALGARY — Alberta’s top doctor is defending the province’s plan to lift all its COVID-19 public health restrictions despite mounting concerns from physicians and political leaders across Canada, including federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu.

In a letter to Alberta Health Minister Tyler Shandro, Hajdu said she agrees with the Canadian Paediatric Society’s description of the province’s move as an “unnecessary and risky gamble.”

Hajdu said recent modelling for Alberta forecasts a more serious resurgence in cases fuelled by the Delta variant, and all governments need to take reasonable steps to protect Canadians.

“The vaccination campaign in Canada, one of the best in the world, has significantly changed the overall context of COVID-19 here,” wrote Hajdu. “However, it is still too early to declare victory.

“Many remain unvaccinated, creating the potential for outbreaks, and we need to increase first and second dose coverage in order to protect against a Delta-driven resurgence that could seriously impact our citizens and our health system capacity.”

Hajdu said she wants to better understand the rationale and science behind Alberta’s decision.

Last week, the province ended contract tracing and said close contacts of people who test positive for COVID-19 are not required to isolate. And starting Aug. 16, those infected will no longer need to quarantine.

Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta’s chief medical officer of health, told The Canadian Press on Thursday that the decision was made after her team reviewed data on age-specific outcomes related to COVID-19, vaccine effectiveness and modelling on transmission of the Delta variant and related health outcomes.

Hinshaw said they also studied other jurisdictions, like the United Kingdom, which saw an uptick in the Delta variant before Alberta, to determine risks related to eliminating restrictions.

“We expect that we’ll see a rise in cases and they will continue to rise for about a month. But the impact on severe outcomes and on acute care will be greatly mitigated by vaccines,” said Hinshaw.

While Hinshaw acknowledged concerns from Albertans about the “hard and rapid shift,” she said timing is the most important question.

“What I think has not been a part of the conversation is the risk of maintaining the status quo,” she said.

If Alberta continues to treat COVID-19 as its biggest risk and focuses all of its resources on it, the province will accumulate a backlog of other problems, Hinshaw explained.

Dropping isolation, testing and contact tracing measures before the fall will help Alberta prepare for an expected spike in other respiratory illnesses, she said, and it will free up acute care and public health resources.

Hinshaw stressed, however, that people who get sick with COVID-19 or any other transmissible illnesses should isolate despite not being legally required to.

If Alberta’s acute care system is again overwhelmed or a new variant poses a significant threat, Hinshaw said the province will reconsider reinstating public health measures.

Shandro declined to comment on Hajdu’s letter Thursday, but criticized the federal minister on social media.

“Minister Hajdu noticeably neglected to write a letter to Saskatchewan despite (us) having similar approaches to the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, Ms. Hajdu chose to target Alberta – the Trudeau Liberals’ favourite punching bag,” he wrote, before condemning the federal government’s track record on addressing COVID-19.

Shandro said Hinshaw and her team’s recommendations to lift health measures are “in line with the science.”

In a recent editorial, Hinshaw apologized for causing some people “confusion, fear or anger” but said the changes will help support the whole health of Albertans.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 5, 2021.

EDMONTON — A COVID-19 vaccine developed in Edmonton is moving to the next stage of clinical trials.

The CEO of Entos Pharmaceuticals says the results of the phase one trials were exactly what they were hoping to see. Now the company is preparing for phase two.

“It was completely safe, completely well tolerated and produced the kind of response we wanted,” said CEO John Lewis.

Since there are already approved COVID-19 vaccines for Canadians, Lewis says the company decided it wasn’t feasible to conduct a primary immunization trial in Canada. The next stage of trials will take place in Honduras, South Africa and possibly India.

“We’re running the clinical in areas where we know we can run a high quality clinical trial where approved vaccines are just not available,” said Lewis.

“A clinical trial is a great option for an individual, and also because this is the kind of vaccine that would be very suitable for distribution in low and middle income countries.”

The vaccine is made using DNA instead of RNA making it easier to transport and store at lower temperatures.

Lewis says the DNA vaccine is stable in a regular fridge for over a year, and stable at room temperature for over a month.

“We see this as a key tool on our quest to get the world vaccinated,” said Lewis.

EDMONTON — For the sixth straight day people gathered outside of the legislature to protest the upcoming changes to Alberta’s COVID-19 public health measures.

Starting Aug. 16 the provincial government plans to remove mandatory quarantine for people who test positive for the disease, it will only be recommended.

Albertans with COVID-19 symptoms will not be asked to get tested, but to stay at home until they feel better. Starting Aug. 30 COVID-19 tests will only be available to those who need to go to the hospital or see a physician.

At the same time masks will no longer be mandatory in public transit, rideshares and taxies.

“Test, trace and isolate,” said one speaker Wednesday evening, calling those measures the “most basic” the province could keep in place.

Some of the protestors were parents concerned about the government’s back-to-school plan. They’re worried COVID-19 is more harmful to kids than Premier Jason Kenney and Dr. Deena Hinshaw say.

In a press conference Tuesday, Kenney said the decision was based on science and data.

“People are understandably anxious about both the disease itself and the damaging effect of restrictions,” said Kenney.

Organizers say they’ll rally every day until Aug. 16 – the day the changes to public health measures are to take place – in an attempt to get the government to backtrack.

“I feel that if we keep doing this, we can get this government to change its course,” said Albert Nobbs, founder of Alberta Activist Collective.

Nobbs says protests have also been happening in other cities across the province including Grande Prairie, Red Deer and Calgary.