No change in COVID-19 cases in Medicine Hat, significant change to testing in province

There are currently 116 Albertans in hospital, 16 in ICU. There have been 293 deaths, an increase of one from Monday.

The province conducted 13,003 tests in the past 24 hours.

Saying that test results are not getting back to Albertans quick enough, Dr. Deena Hinshaw announced a “significant” change to testing that she called a critical step to improving COVID control in the province.

“Effectively immediately we will be pressing pause on all asymptomatic testing in those who have no known exposure,” she said. “This is an important and necessary step that will help us reduce testing wait times, get results to Albertans and limit the spread.”

With cold and flu symptoms mirroring COVID symptoms, labs became overwhelmed in the past few weeks by the increase in tests.

Hinshaw said even with a September shift to only doing asymptomatic testing among priority groups, wait times for results have not decreased as much as they need to in order to use lab test information to prevent spread in an optimal way.

Alberta Health Services and community pharmacies will no longer be booking new appointments for asymptomatic people with no known exposure and only appointments up until Nov. 4 will be honoured.

On Halloween, Hinshaw recommended against large parties but that trick-or-treating should be low-risk in small cohort groups as long as the regular health guidelines are followed.

She added COVID-19 is not going anywhere and AHS will be nimble and adapt its approach as needed.

Hinshaw also said technical challenges are part of the holdup in making the federal contact tracing app available in Alberta, namely transitioning the info from the provincial app to the federal one. She said discussions continue to take place.

Up the highway from Medicine Hat, Brooks has two new cases Tuesday and now has 16 active cases.

With a rate of more than 50 active cases per 100,000 people, Brooks is now on the provincial “Watch” list; Brooks’ rate is 82.9.

Lethbridge and Lethbridge County are also both on the “Watch” list at 143.5 and 79.3, respectively. The city’s rate is the highest among the major cities in the province.

But since the infections in Lethbridge can “for the most part” be traced to a source, Hinshaw said voluntary measures like those established for Edmonton two weeks ago are unlikely at the moment.

Hinshaw urged people to get flu shots, and that AHS will focus its efforts on providing vaccines those under 5 years old, those without Alberta Health Care numbers and those in a community where there are no other providers

She said getting the influenza vaccine helps prevent the spread of the flu in a year where COVID-19 has added an additional headache in terms of required COVID-19 testing.

The province’s chief medical officer of health is also concerned by the rising number of hospitalization across Alberta that she says is being driven by a number of factors, largely an increase in community case counts and outbreaks at hospitals.

She said the “current compounded daily COVID hospitalization rise is 3.1 per cent across the province in the past two weeks, which is getting closer to the five per cent trigger threshold,” which could lead to a return of some mandatory restrictions.

The Edmonton Zone continues to be a concern for Hinshaw, where there are currently about half of the active cases in the province. On the positive side, she said that since the voluntary health measures were introduced earlier this month the rate of growth has begun to slow.

On Tuesday there are 96 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 were added to the list on Oct. 5, and Ecole St. John Paul II has been on it since late August.

There 2,119 cases in the South Zone There are 199 active cases and 1,893 recovered. There are currently four COVID-19 cases in hospital in the South Zone, two in the ICU. A death in Lethbridge County brings the zone death total to 27.

Cypress County has totaled 35 cases – two active cases and the rest recovered.

The County of Forty Mile has 44 total cases. There are four active cases and the rest are recovered.

The MD of Taber has 45 total cases — one active case and the rest recovered.

Special Areas No. 2 has 17 total cases, two active cases and the rest recovered.

Brooks has 1,147 total cases — 16 active and 1,122 are recovered. Brooks has recorded nine deaths.

The County of Newell has a total of 38 cases — five active cases, 31 recovered and there have been two deaths.

The County of Warner has 65 total cases. There are two active cases, 62 are recovered cases and there has been one death in the county.

The City of Lethbridge has a total of 361 cases. There are 142 active cases, 217 recovered and there have been two deaths. Lethbridge County has 112 cases, 20 active cases, 91 recovered and there has been one death.

The figures on alberta.ca are “up-to-date as of end of day Oct. 19, 2020.”

Read the full Oct. 20 update from the province here.

Saskatchewan reported 44 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday, one in the South Zones.

Saskatchewan has a total of 2,439 cases, 427 considered active. There are 1,987 recovered cases and there have been 25 COVID-19 deaths in the province.

by Chris Brown

No change in COVID-19 cases in Medicine Hat, significant change to testing in province

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