Active COVID-19 cases down again in Medicine Hat; provincial hospitalization up again

Alberta’s total cases from the start of the pandemic is 164,531.

There have been 12,932 variant cases ID’d in the province, 778 new today. There are 707 in the South Zone.

8,197 active cases (52.6 per cent of total) have been identified as variants of concern.

There are 1,412 total new cases in the province today.

There are now 420 Albertans in hospital with COVID-19, 92 of which are in ICU, and 2,029 deaths.

The province completed 15,738 tests in the past 24 hours.

The positivity rate is about 9.1 per cent.

An updated number of vaccine doses administered was not immediately available.

Dr. Deena Hinshaw will provide another update later this week.

On Wednesday, the province announced that students in Grades 7 to 12 in the Calgary Board of Education and the Calgary Catholic School District will move to at-home learning starting April 19 for two weeks.

The province says the decision to approve a school board’s request to shift to at-home learning for operational considerations wasbased on four criteria:

A chronic substitute teacher shortage.
A significant number of students and staff in quarantine or isolation.
Recent requests from the board for short-term shifts for a number of their schools.
Substantial COVID-19 cases in the community.

There are 9,085 cases in the South Zone. There are 915 active cases and 8,062 recovered. The death total in the zone is at 108.

An AHS spokesperson told CHAT News on Monday that AHS South Zone currently has 31 COVID-19 positive individuals in hospital. There are 27 at Chinook Regional Hospital in Lethbridge, with eight of those in the ICU. Medicine Hat Regional Hospital has three inpatients. The Cardston Health Centre has one inpatient.

St. Michael’s School remains on AHS Outbreak status after reporting five cases in late March.

Positive COVID-19 cases have been connected to Medicine Hat’s River Heights School and Seven Persons School and Irvine School in Cypress County.

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 last week. The individual was confirmed this week to have a variant strain of the virus.

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

The province-wide reproductive value from last week is 1.12. It is 1.08 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 181 cases – 28 active cases and the rest recovered.

The County of Forty Mile has 133 total cases. There are five active cases, 125 recovered and there have been three deaths.

The MD of Taber has 444 total cases — 41 active cases, 397 recovered and there have been six deaths.

Special Areas No. 2 has 71 total cases – eight active cases, 62 recovered and there has been one death.

Brooks has 1,372 total cases — five active cases and 1,353 are recovered. Brooks has recorded 14 deaths.

The County of Newell has a total of 170 cases — eight active cases, 160 recovered and there have been two deaths.

The County of Warner has 218 total cases. There are 39 active cases, 176 are recovered cases and there have been three deaths in the county.

The City of Lethbridge has a total of 3,680 cases. There are 480 active cases, 3,169 recovered and there have been 31 deaths. Lethbridge County has 817 cases, 123 active cases, 686 recovered and there have been eight deaths.

The figures on alberta.ca are “up-to-date as of end of day April 13, 2021.”

Saskatchewan has a total of 37,085 cases, 2,525 considered active. There are 34,102 recovered cases and there have been 458 COVID-19 deaths in the province.

Saskatchewan has delivered 307,449 doses of vaccine.

by Chris Brown

Active COVID-19 cases down again in Medicine Hat; provincial hospitalization up again

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