‘Failing all Albertans’: Shandro decries further cuts in vaccine shipments from Ottawa

“I’m still pretty unsettled … it’s terrible for morale, we’re risking everything,” said the man, who chose anonymity.

“We deal with a lot of COVID — with all of our protective gear it looks safe but there are cracks in the armour.”

That’s the feeling of many of his colleagues within the 27,000-strong Health Sciences Association of Alberta which represents paramedics, lab and X-ray technicians among many others, said its president Mike Parker.

“It’s almost a relentless concern from people across the province,” said Parker, adding front-line health-care workers have been on an emotional rollercoaster.

“The message has been ‘we’re going to get through this’ then I have to say ‘look, we’re nowhere near the end of this’ and the emotional impact of that unknown is just devastating.”

But Parker said Kenney’s blaming the federal Liberals for the vaccine disruptions is cynical Ottawa-bashing, adding $675 million in federal COVID-19 relief funds unspent by Alberta shows the provincial government’s hypocrisy.

“That money left on the table could have been a significant shot in the arm for the economy, not for a vacation in Hawaii,” he said, alluding to outrage over UCP MLAs’ recent beach vacations.

Those figures were included in a report released this week by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

In response to that, Shandro said the focus needs to be kept on the province’s advocating for vaccine delivery and that critics “need to give their heads a shake.”

Meanwhile, another 461 new cases of the virus were detected in Alberta over the past 24 hours, with a test positivity rate of 3.7 per cent.

That’s considerably lower than the nine per cent rate recorded in December but still far higher than the one per cent last spring and summer.