By Chris Brown

Number of new cases high again

Alberta launches $53M COVID-19 mental health response plan

Apr 15, 2020 | 3:58 PM

After the largest single day jump in COVID-19 cases in Alberta yesterday, Premier Jason Kenney announced a further 126 cases on Wednesday. The provincial total now sits at 1,996. Kenney had no further deaths to announce.

“The most encouraging news for Albertans continues to be our relatively low rate of hospitalization and ICU admissions,” he said, noting today 44 Albertans are being treated in hospitals and 10 in intensive care units.

“Those numbers have been stable for the last several days, in fact the ICU number is down slightly and they continue to be well below the numbers projected in AHS’s modelling that we presented a week ago,” said Kenney.

When Dr. Deena Hinshaw stepped to the microphone she spoke about a data centre outage at the ministry that has shut down the data feed from the provincial lab.

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The data feed is preventing the release of the more complete numbers and regional figures Albertans have come to expect. Hinshaw expects complete data, including the number of recoveries, to be available as part of Thursday’s update.

Following an outbreak at the Cargill Meat Solutions plant in High River a dedicated assessment centre will be opened by AHS in the coming week. The centre will be accessible through the online assessment tool or by calling 811.

A previous outbreak at the Harmony beef plant has been resolved, said Hinshaw and reminds Albertans that COVID-19 is not a food-borne illness

Hinshaw also announced an outbreak at the Kearl Lake oilsands project north of Fort McMurray. Three people connected with the work camp have tested positive, six more are isolating while awaiting test results.

As part of his address, Kenney announced a $53 million comprehensive mental health and addiction COVID-19 response plan.

He said “the investment is more than all of the other provinces’ COVID-19 mental health responses combined, times two.”

The premier said it will hugely expand Albertans’ access to online and virtual mental health and addiction services, supports and resources.

The Government of Alberta is investing $21.4 million to improve access to phone and online supports with existing helplines, including the Addiction Helpline, the Mental health Helpline, Kids Help Phone and the Community and Social Services Helpline.

The funding also includes $2.6 million to expand individual and group treatment to address family violence, addiction and mental health for Albertans, $4.2 million to expand the addiction and mental health support available through Primary Care Network and $25 million for a new community grant program to enhance community mental health and addiction recovery for the public, including Indigenous communities, seniors, families and people experiencing social barriers, who are negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a release, Jason Luan, Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, said it’s important that Albertans in all corners of the province have access to the mental health and addiction supports they need.

“These resources will help address the needs of children, youth and adults, and we will continue to work with our partners across the mental health and addiction sector to find innovative ways to support Albertans in need, both now and after the pandemic is behind us.”

Kenney said it’s still unclear when the pandemic will end or when economic and social restrictions needed to contain the virus can be eased.

“That all depends on the choices that we make as Albertans individually and collectively in the days to come,” he said.

For those struggling, Kenney said simply, “Alberta is there for you.”

Earlier Kenney touted Alberta’s early adoption of aggressive testing and noted the province’s testing is higher than any other province on a per capita basis.

Testing has averaged about 1,900 Albertans per day and will continue to be ramped up, Kenney said.

Read the full April 15 update from the province here.

Cases confirmed in Brooks

After about a week’s worth of confusion and back and forth between the City of Brooks and Alberta Health as to whether there are cases in that city, officials released a statement Wednesday.

It reads, in part:

“Recognizing that Alberta Health had previously released data confirming two erroneous cases in the City of Brooks, we can confidently release information that three cases of COVID-19 have been identified and confirmed locally.

We have been assured that Alberta Heath Services (AHS) is working to determine how the transmittals occurred in these instances and they have directly contacted individuals who are considered to be a close contact, or what is considered to be a person who may have been exposed to the positive COVID-19 cases. Only individuals contacted directly by AHS are considered to be a close contact. If you are not contacted directly by AHS, you are not considered exposed.”