“There’s no point in running the lessons learned after this pandemic, because the only lessons we will learn if we let our governments do it now are exactly the wrong lessons,” said David Redman, a 27-year veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces.
“The use of [non-pharmaceutical interventions] were known not to stop transmission, but to have massive, massive collateral damage. To use them over and over, in my opinion, is criminal negligence causing death, and we need to hold accountable those who did it.”
Redman, who developed emergency management in Alberta and North America and led the development of the Alberta Counter-Terrorism Crisis Management Plan, testified in front of the National Citizen’s Inquiry (NCI) on Thursday.
‘We Failed’
Redman said every province in Canada has an Emergency Management Organization (EMO), which follows “almost an identical process” to deal with threats. Redman said each province had pre-defined pandemic plans, which aimed to minimize the impact of viruses on all of society.Redman said when he became the head of Alberta’s Emergency Management Agency in 2001, he led “26 of the smartest people in Alberta” through mission analysis of the province’s response to a future pandemic.
Redman said the pre-written pandemic plan—which is similar for all Canadian provinces—involved the four processes of reducing illness and death from the disease through “appropriate” prevention, care, and treatment; mitigating societal disruption through the “continuity of government services”; minimizing adverse economic impact; and supporting an efficient and effective use of resources during response and recovery.
“We failed at four out of four,” Redman said.
“The aim is to minimize the impact of the virus on all of society. Within days [of the COVID-19 pandemic], it switched to be to minimize the impact on the health care system or the medical system. It was the absolutely wrong aim, and the result is what you’ve lived through for three years. If you get the aim wrong, everything that follows is wrong,” he said.
Redman said all levels of government should have enacted “focused protection” for the Canadians who were at risk of severe illness or death from COVID-19. He pointed out that by mid-March 202, it was known that those dying from the virus were primarily over 80 years old and with multiple comorbidities.
“And what did our medical officers of health do? They tried to convince us that everybody was at equal risk. Absolutely untrue,” Redman said. “Eighty-three percent of the people who’ve died in Canada were obese. So what did we do? We closed all the gyms, we told them they couldn’t go outside and use the walking trails, and we gave them absolutely no feedback on how to make themselves healthier in terms of diet and exercise.”
No Cost-Benefit Analysis on Lockdowns
Redman said Canada’s federal and provincial governments did not conduct cost-benefit analyses on non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI) like lockdowns, school closures, and travel restrictions, which were previously considered to be the most severe options for pandemic mitigation.The veteran said the “worst thing” governments did when responding to COVID-19 was interrupt the socialization and development of children. “There are many studies that show that a one-year loss of education causes a five to 15-year decrease in economic ability, earning ability for that individual and a three to five-year decrease in lifespan. And we didn’t do it for one year, we did it for three.”
Redman also criticized Canada’s medical officers of health for how they handled Canadians’ Charter Rights, claiming they “immediately destroyed our rights and freedoms worse than any terrorist attack ever could have done.”
Redman said vaccines were also never talked about in emergency management, as they should “never be counted on” during pandemics. “A vaccine takes five to 10 years to develop if you’re using proven technology. They take ten years plus if you’re using new technology and a pandemic is long over before you ever get a vaccine.”
