About the Alberta COVID-19 Pandemic Data Review Task Force Report

Dated: February 23, 2025

On Friday, January 24, 2025, the Alberta COVID-19 Pandemic Data Review Task Force (the "Task Force") released its report on Alberta's response to the Covid pandemic ("Report"). The Report has been severely criticized by many, including the authors of an article published in the Globe and Mail on January 31, 2025 entitled: "Albertans deserved a post-pandemic review. Instead, they got misinformation cloaked in science" ("Globe Article").[Note: this article is behind a pay wall so I have not been able to link to it at this time}

Let's deal with the major criticisms in the Globe Article one by one.

Criticism One - Composition of the Task Force

The Task Force was criticized as being peopled exclusively by a small group 'known to be staunchly opposed to vaccines and public health measures'. [Globe Article] This criticism may suggest bias. Bias can be a fair point of attack. It can also be a fair point against the ones attacking! The authors of the Globe Article were co-chairs of the Alberta Health Services COVID-19 Scientific Advisory Group ("SAG") from March 2020 to December, 2022. Effectively, they are defending their work related to dealing with the pandemic. This could be a bias, n'est- ce pas?

Specifically, it was noted that Dr. Gary Dickson, who headed the Task Force was a former UCP candidate. This alone apparently condemned any possibility that the Report could have any value whatsoever. A typical ad hominem approach so common in debate these days.

Another devastating feature of the Task Force, to some but not mentioned in the Globe Article, was its inclusion of Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, one of the signatories to the Great Barrington Declaration, and recent appointee of Donald Trump to head the US NIH. He has been called a 'pandemic denier'. A glance at the Declaration immediately shows that he (and others) did not deny that Covid was a pandemic. The signatories suggested different policies for dealing with the pandemic - 'Focused Protection' rather than lock-down policies. [Note: this was not a criticism made in the Globe Article, but elsewhere]

To all this, I quote Steven Pinker, from 'Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress'

"… all ideas have to come from somewhere, and their birthplace has no bearing on their merit."

I take this quote to mean, challenge the merits of an idea, not the source.

There is evidence to support that the Task Force was not empanelled with a broad cross-section of experts in the field. This is a legitimate criticism. Broader representation may have assisted the substance of the Report. It may also have deflected ad hominem attacks. Not being broadly empanelled does not entail that the Report has no merit whatsoever as claimed by some. It is unfortunate, however.

Criticism Two

The Report is 'littered with familiar contrarian, anti-science talking points many already debunked by fact checkers'. [Globe Article]. In support of this general statement, one example is given dealing with the safety of COVID vaccine use by pregnant women. Another example of an anti-science talking point relates to "a shocking number of deaths in the initial rollout of the Pfizer vaccine with no linked reference" (emphasis added). A third example relates to the Report's supposed statement that "vaccinated kids may develop myocarditis, and one quarter of those will die ...".

The Report says "Reports of deaths and injuries attributed to the vaccines were identified, as well as a known risk of myocarditis, particularly in young males". [p. 187]

In multiple places the Report refers to Pfizer vaccine safety data from two trials: see pp. 188, 195-197 and footnotes 246 and 247. One trial was a 3 month post-authorization trial. According to footnote 247, the [impugned] data depicted is from a table forming part of this trial.

It appears there was a second clinical trial conducted by Pfizer. The results of this clinical trial were subject to a forensic analysis by independent scientists in a published paper as identified in footnote 246 of the Report.

The Pfizer safety data does show deaths and injuries attributed to the Pfizer vaccine as noted in the Report - and references are given contrary to what is reported in the Globe Article. This may not be the whole story but the Report does not purport to be a meta analysis of all scientific research on the issue. It merely makes the point that injuries related to the Pfizer vaccine have been reported.

Regarding harm to pregnant women, the Report quotes from Dr. Pierre Kory's published analysis of the Pfizer trial data concerning pregnant women. [pp. 196-197, footnote 248]

The Report deals with myocarditis in young kids at pages 204-205 and footnotes 264, 265 and 266. See also Appendix 6. The point the Report makes is that COVID posed little risk to young kids so why expose them to even low risks of serious harm associated with the vaccine. [see p. 205, Appendices 1-7.

The Report says there have been 'reports of deaths and injuries'. As noted above, it does not say that the Task Force has done a meta study of all research to date and came to a definitive conclusion on the safety of vaccines. The point it makes is there is evidence of some potential harm and this should be brought to the attention of patients. In the case of kids, why take any risk of serious harm, even if small, if there is no benefit to be obtained? A debatable point; not misinformation.

Criticism Three

The Globe Article says this: "... the task force recommended immediately halting use of all COVID-19 vaccines, which would leave high-risk patients vulnerable and put Canadians at risk if new aggressive strains emerge."

What the Report actually says is "Immediately halt the use of all COVID-19 vaccines without full disclosure to patients regarding both the safety and efficacy issues by their physician." [emphasis added] The Report does recommend ending the use of COVID-19 vaccines "for healthy children and teenagers as other jurisdictions have done. See Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and the UK." [page 205]

It is the Globe Article that is guilty of misinformation.

Criticism Four

The Globe Article says the Report recommends the use of medications that "have been rejected by mainstream science after extensive studies". One example given is the use of 'ivermectin'.

Is this fundamentally what the Report says or is it a straw man? The Report reviews several medications and supplements as being, at the time of the pandemic, options that should have been available to doctors and pharmacists to prescribe using their best judgment.  The Report questions why health care authorities vilified and sanctioned doctors and pharmacists for prescribing these drugs in the hope they might help with COVID when they had proven safety records in other applications. For example, the Report says:

"Repurposed drugs with extensive safety records are particularly attractive in situations of high clinical need as they allow physicians to prescribe these drugs for new indications with little risk to patients, even in the absence of high levels of supporting evidence."

The Globe Article says: "The report also recommends medications that have been rejected by mainstream science after extensive studies." Where does the Report say that?

The recommendations given in the Report concerning therapeutics are set out on pages 241-242. The thrust of the recommendations are to allow doctors and pharmacists to treat their patients using their best judgment concerning safe, but off-label drugs, without facing prosecution or disciplinary actions.

Criticism Five

The Report is "disinformation cloaked as scientific to trump the best available evidence".

Isn't this the classic argument used today to deal with positions one disagrees with. What I say is science, what you say is disinformation.

Is there anything of merit in the Report?

As noted in the Globe Article, the Report is 269 pages long.

The stated purpose of the Report was to be a data review of publicly available information guided by questions concerning: data supply; data quality; data resources; data analytics; data interpretation; data triangulation; and data flow. [pp.12-13]

One stated objective of the Report was to look at the decision-making framework during the pandemic including how decisions were made an based on what information. [p.13]

The Report notes that at the time of the pandemic, Alberta had an existing pandemic response plan in place. [pp. 17, 25] This plan was immediately abandoned when the public health emergency was declared in March 2020. [p.17]

Why would Alberta do that? The existing Alberta plan called for minimizing social and economic disruption in the event of a pandemic. One can see why at least this aspect of the plan was discarded. It would have stopped lockdowns altogether!

The Report outlines the byzantine structure within Alberta for decision making at the time of the declaration of the pandemic emergency. The structure is certainly eye-watering. [see pp. 17-18; 26; 27] This structure fit within an overall federal pandemic structure - see p. 23.

The Report found:

"This investigation revealed that information relied upon in Alberta’s

response to COVID-19 originated from national and international sources,

filtering through the federal government to various provincial working

groups established during the crisis. This flow of information significantly

influenced the decision-making process and the formulation of policies."

The Report further found:

The specific foundations of the established initiative remain uncertain;

however, interviewees indicated that Alberta recognized the necessity for a distinct approach to pandemic response, leading to the abandonment of its existing emergency pandemic response plan.

Some decision making members were of the view that COVID-19 presented a concrete measurable risk whereas the harm from policies of lockdowns and masking were difficult to quantify. [p. 32] As such, during the first three waves of COVID, the precautionary principle guided decision making.

Major conclusions of Chapter 1 of the Report: (pp. 37-43] included:

• The COVID response failed to take into account the non-COVID harms of lockdowns (societal disruption and economic impact) notwithstanding that the existing Alberta Pandemic plan and the later KPMG Report provided that these harms were to be considered.

• Too much deference was given to national and international pandemic plans without proper application of Alberta plans and policies and consideration of Alberta circumstances.

• In future, Alberta should stick to its own pandemic plan.

In Chapter 2 of the Report, the Task Force is critical of professional regulatory bodies effectively coercing medical practitioners to adopt a consensus on health care delivery during the pandemic which it found to be anti-science. [p. 53]

An example given is a direction to doctors and pharmacists not to prescribe off-label use of certain drugs in the treatment of COVID. [p. 54].

The Report is critical of how professional bodies deferred to government officials concerning health care without doing their own study or investigation.

The Report suggests that deferring to government directives was a breach of the ethical obligations of doctors to treat each patient based on individualized plans. Patients are entitled to choose treatments and exemptions to treatments. [p. 76] Doctors faced disciplinary action if they did not follow the government narrative. [p. 80]

Doctors were threatened with sanctions: for prescribing off-label drugs they believed to be effective against COVID; and for granting vaccine and masking exemptions.

The Report suggests more distance between professional organizations and government. Scientific debate should be encouraged, not discouraged. [p. 108]

Chapter 3 deals with modelling, which I won't comment on.

Chapter 4 deals with non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) - closures and social restrictions. The Task Force concluded that these measures had a limited effect on reducing infection growth but they had significant social and economic costs. [p. 128]

The Task Force recommended that there must be a balanced approach considering both health and economic impacts. [p.128]

The Task Force recommends that public health authorities should "... provide risk/benefit analyses to decision makers, driven by scientific evidence, where it exists, before NPI's are initiated in a crises". [p. 141]

Harm from NPIs must be considered as they are substantial. [see pp. 141-143]

Lockdowns did not substantively reduce transmissions or off-set the use of healthcare resources. [p. 143]

Chapter 5 deals with masking. The Task Force noted that masking studies showed mixed results for the effectiveness of continuous masking in preventing respiratory illnesses in community (as opposed to health care) settings [p. 150]. It also noted potential harms of mask wearing like self-contamination and a false sense of security. [p. 150] Despite mixed evidence of benefits and potential harms, masks were mandated in Alberta. [p.150] Despite this mandate, infections did not decrease. [p. 150] The Task Force recommends that in future, proper education should be given regarding mask use and that freedom should be given whether to wear a mask or not. [pp. 150-151]

Chapter 6 deals with testing. I will not deal with that issue here.

Chapter 7 deals with 'infection-acquired immunity' which is contrasted with 'vaccine acquired immunity'. The Task Force analyzes the effectiveness of infection-acquired immunity and its role in dealing with a pandemic. It concludes that a balanced approach should be taken allowing infection-acquired immunity a role to play in addition to the role played by vaccine acquired immunity. [p. 175]

The Task Force was critical of government messaging that vaccine acquired immunity was the only effective form of immunity and that being vaccinated made everyone in the community safer. [p. 179] It pointed to some evidence [see footnoted studies] that supports the existence of infection-acquired immunity from non-COVID viruses being effective against COVID. [pp. 179-180]

The Task Force recommendations are largely related to messaging with the public. It recommends clarifying the role of both types of immunity and not pushing, by messaging or coercion, only vaccine-acquired immunity. [pp. 184-185]

Chapter 8 deals with vaccinations. I have dealt with this above.

Chapter 9 deals with therapeutics. I have dealt with this above.

Conclusion

Criticism of the Report, as done in the Globe Article, is unhelpful. The Report undoubtedly has flaws and limitations. These may be pointed out logically and dispassionately. The authors of the Globe Article discredit themselves by their rhetoric.