By Chris Brown

'If you are sick, you need to stay home'

One new COVID-19 case in Medicine Hat, active cases now at two

Oct 5, 2020 | 3:40 PM

Medicine Hat now has two active cases of COVID-19 after one case was confirmed over the weekend.

The confirmed case is in a classroom support staff member at Elm Street School who also works at the YMCA Before and After School care program at Herald School.

The city now has total cases 83 – the two active, 79 recovered and there have been two deaths.

There are 578 new cases across the province in Monday’s update. There were 97 cases confirmed on Oct. 2, 263 on Oct. 3 and 218 on Oct. 4.

The total number of COVID-19 cases across the province stands at 18,935. There are 1,783 active cases, up 225 from Friday, and 16,872 recovered cases, up 345.

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There are currently 62 Albertans in hospital, 14 in ICU. There have been 280 deaths, an increase of eight from Friday.

The province conducted 45,998 tests in the past 72 hours – 12,630 on Oct. 2, 17,445 on Oct. 3 and 15,923 on Oct. 4.

When reviewing current active cases, Dr. Deena Hinshaw said that about 11 per cent of cases are attending work or still going to social gatherings when symptomatic while awaiting test results.

“This is a significant risk, and is one of the factors causing our case numbers to rise,” she said. “I want to be clear: If you are sick, you need to stay home. If you are sick you should not go to social gatherings of any kind. This includes the upcoming Thanksgiving weekend.”

She later urged Albertans to keep gathering limited to family and cohort members, to keep gathering small, eat outdoors if possible and don’t share serving spoons or dishes.

The province’s chief medical officer of health said she staying home from work can create financial hardship for some, but that it must be done and she again asked employers to support their staff in staying home while sick.

“We cannot prevent a second wave, or limit the spread of COVID in Alberta if we do not all take these basic steps,” she said, adding if the spread cannot be controlled together, additional restrictive measures will be considered.

The ongoing serology testing, which has studied close to 35,000 samples to examine a person’s blood to learn if they have antibodies to COVID-19, found that from early June to early August the proportion of people with antibodies did not increase.

She said more research is needed and is underway, but there is one takeaway from the study so far.

“What this tells us is our swab testing program is almost certainly not missing large volumes of cases, Hinshaw said. “It tells us that we are achieving what we set out to achieve, and the protective measures that Albertans have been using have prevented widespread transmission.”

She said we are protecting each other and must continue to do so.

“We cannot rely on hopes that sufficient antibodies slowly build up in enough of the population to limit spread of the virus after enough time has passed. We must continue to employ strategic measures to prevent transmission and protect our communities.”

Hinshaw said the recent increase in deaths is driven in large part by the outbreak at the Foothills Medical Centre in Calgary. She also said the large number of cases over the weekend in Edmonton is concerning.

“We have seen an escalation of cases in Edmonton, an increase in the reproductive number to 1.3 last week and a rise in active cases to 894. We are taking this seriously and looking closely at what causes are driving this increase that we are seeing.”

Hinshaw said additional measures could be recommended for Edmonton to bring transmission down.

On Monday there are 65 schools in the province where outbreaks have been declared. Alberta Health’s threshold for declaring an outbreak in school is two cases being in a school while infectious within 14 days.

No local schools are classified as having outbreaks on the provincial website.

The website Support Our Students is tracking instances of cases in schools across the province. Elm Street School and Herald School have been added to its list, which also includes Ecole St. John Paul II, which was added in late August.

There 1,859 cases in the South Zone There are 47 active cases and 1,786 recovered. There are currently two COVID-19 cases in hospital in the South Zone, one in the ICU. There has been one more death in the zone, for a total of 26.

Cypress County has totaled 33 cases – two active and the rest recovered.

The County of Forty Mile has 40 total cases. There are five active cases and the rest are recovered.

The MD of Taber has 44 total cases — two active cases and the rest recovered.

Special Areas No. 2 has 14 total cases, one new active cases and the rest recovered.

Brooks has 1,132 total cases —1,120 are recovered and three are active. Brooks has recorded nine deaths.

The County of Newell has a total of 33 cases — one active case, 30 recovered and there have been two deaths.

The County of Warner has 63 total cases. There is one active case, 61 are recovered cases and there has been one death in the county.

The City of Lethbridge has a total of 183 cases. There are 12 active cases, 169 recovered and there have been two deaths. Lethbridge County has 66 cases, 17 active cases and the rest recovered.

The figures on alberta.ca are “up-to-date as of end of day Oct. 4, 2020.”

Read the full Oct. 5 update from the province here.

Saskatchewan reported 28 new cases of COVID-19 over the weekend, nine in the South Zones.

Saskatchewan has a total of 1,968 cases, 143 considered active. There are 1,801 recovered cases and there have been 24 COVID-19 deaths in the province.