Medicine Hat up to 62 active COVID-19 cases; Hinshaw asks Albertans to pull together

She urged those businesses and patrons and people in positions of leadership planning to break the rules to consider the overall situation in the province.

“It’s important to remember that for example in the 2009 influenza pandemic the height of our ICU occupancy for influenza H1N1 in 2009 … was 35 cases in ICU at any given time,” the chief medical officer of health said. “We now have over 80 people in our ICUs and the numbers will continue to rise as our case count rises. This is something that is extraordinary and we need everyone to pull together in order to turn the tide and in order and in order save our health-care system.”

She said Albertans must act now to avoid the system from being overwhelmed and not following the public health measures “we will have a very significant impact on our health-care system.”

She added she thinks the people that are contravening the health orders haven’t been personally impacted by COVID-19.

There are 62 active cases of COVID-19 in Medicine Hat on Thursday.

Medicine Hat now has had 635 total cases – the 62 active, 556 recovered and there have been 17 deaths.

There 14 new cases in the city and two new recoveries today.

Across the province, there are 12,187 active cases, up 723 from Wednesday, and 142,713 recovered cases, up 703.

Alberta’s total cases from the start of the pandemic is 156,905.

There have been 8,278 variant cases ID’d in the province, 717 new today. There are 454 in the South Zone.

5,457 active cases (44.8 per cent of total) have been identified as variants of concern.

There are 1,429 total new cases in the province today.

There are now 340 Albertans in hospital with COVID-19, 83 of which are in ICU, and 2,005 deaths.

The province completed 15,203 tests in the past 24 hours.

The positivity rate is about 9.4 per cent.

Alberta has delivered 755,831 doses of vaccine.

Hinshaw’s next in-person update will be Tuesday.

COVID-19 variants of concern continue to cause lead to high daily case counts not seen in the province since the end of 2020.

“We have now reached the point that if you test positive, you should assume that you have the U.K. variant,” Hinshaw said.

It is now the dominant strain in Alberta.

Hinshaw said that even though the viruses are new, current evidence shows they are more transmissible than the earlier form of the virus.

“The B.1.1.7 (first identified in the U.K.) seems to be about 50 per cent more transmissible, and P.1 (Brazil) seems to be closer to twice as infectious,” says Hinshaw.

She said each of the variants of concern has unique properties. There is also a third B.1.351 (South African).

The B.1.1.7 seems to be able to cause more severe illness than the original strain.

“At this point, it’s not clear if the other two variants also have increased severity or if some of the severe outcomes being reported in countries where they are the dominant strain are due to the high burden of the disease because of how infectious they are.”

The chief medical officer of health says all three vaccines currently available in Alberta are effective at stopping the province’s most common variant, the B.1.1.7. Evidence is less clear right now about the other two, she said.

For B.1.351, she said vaccines seem to have a lower effectiveness but still may provide protection against severe outcomes.

For P.1 evidence is mixed, she said, “and it isn’t clear whether there will be a vaccine effectiveness impact.”

Rapidly expanding knowledge about the variants is one reason tougher public health measures were announced this week.

Until Tuesday an outbreak was listed on the provincial website at the Valleyview long-term care facility in Medicine Hat. The outbreak was opened on Feb. 12. It’s no longer listed.

There are 8,700 cases in the South Zone. There are 915 active cases and 7,679 recovered. The death total in the zone is at 106.

An AHS spokesperson told CHAT News on Thursday that AHS South Zone currently has 33 COVID-19 positive individuals in hospital. There are 30 at Chinook Regional Hospital in Lethbridge, with eight of those in the ICU. Medicine Hat Regional Hospital has two inpatients, with one in the ICU. The Cardston Health Centre has one inpatient.

St. Michael’s School is on AHS Outbreak status after reporting five cases last week.

Ecole Connaught School has confirmed two variant cases. The first case was identified on March 31, the second on April 3.

Sixty-nine students from Eagle Butte High School are quarantining after a positive case was confirmed at the school.

The website Support Our Students is tracking instances of cases in schools across the province.

The province-wide reproductive value from last week is 1.17. It is 1.17 in Calgary Zone, 1.18 in Edmonton Zone and 1.13 in the rest of Alberta. These figures are updated each Monday.

Cypress County has totaled 174 cases – 28 active cases and the rest recovered.

The County of Forty Mile has 133 total cases. There are eight active cases, 122 recovered and there have been three deaths.

The MD of Taber has 423 total cases — 56 active cases, 361 recovered and there have been six deaths.

Special Areas No. 2 has 69 total cases – eight active cases, 60 recovered and there has been one death.

Brooks has 1,369 total cases — two active cases and 1,353 are recovered. Brooks has recorded 14 deaths.

The County of Newell has a total of 164 cases — two active case, 160 recovered and there have been two deaths.

The County of Warner has 196 total cases. There are 18 active cases, 175 are recovered cases and there have been three deaths in the county.

The City of Lethbridge has a total of 3,502 cases. There are 513 active cases, 2,959 recovered and there have been 30 deaths. Lethbridge County has 763 cases, 114 active cases, 641 recovered and there have been eight deaths.

The figures on alberta.ca are “up-to-date as of end of day April 7, 2021.”

Read the full April 8 update from the province here.

Saskatchewan has a total of 35,376 cases, 2,141 considered active. There are 32,788 recovered cases and there have been 447 COVID-19 deaths in the province.

Saskatchewan has delivered 244,646 doses of vaccine.

by Chris Brown

Medicine Hat up to 62 active COVID-19 cases; Hinshaw asks Albertans to pull together

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