By Chris Brown

One more COVID-19 death in Medicine Hat

Premier expects health measures will be relaxed in February

Feb 1, 2022 | 5:31 PM

Alberta’s premier says there are continued encouraging trends and the province has passed the peak of the Omicron wave.

Jason Kenney says there has been continuing decline in the number of total active cases, a gradual decline in the positivity rate for positive PCR tests and a gradual decline in the number of patients hospitalized in ICU with COVID-19.

“While we clearly did reach the peak of Omicron infections approximately two weeks ago and it appears we reached the peak of ICU pressures two weeks ago we are not out of the woods yet,” Kenney said on Tuesday afternoon.

He says there remains significant pressure in major urban hospitals and emergency wards, and high numbers frontline of workers who have had to stay home and are absent becasue of self-isolation due to COVID infection as well as our frontline workers just being exhausted after the two past incredibly difficult years.

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He asked Albertans to continue to be mindful of the pressure on the pressure of the health-care system.

Once there is a sustained reduction of COVID pressure on the hospitals he is “looking toward to being able to make decisions about moving toward relaxations of public health measures at that time,” including the elimination of the Restrictions Exemption Program.

Kenney believes that will happen in February.

Chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw said it is critical to remember that half of all cases happen in the second half of waves and transmission is still very high.

There are now 1,585 Albertans in hospital with COVID-19, 109 of which are in ICU, and 3,579 deaths.

An AHS spokesperson told CHAT News Tuesday that there are currently 86 COVID-19 positive inpatients in the South Zone with 5 of those in the ICU. There are 28 inpatients at Medicine Hat Regional Hospital with three COVID-19 positive patients in the ICU.

Chinook Regional Hospital has 39 inpatients with two in the ICU. Brooks Health Centre has five inpatients; Cardston Health Centre has four; Pincher Creek Health Centre and Taber Health Centre have two each; and Bow Island Health Centre has one.

There are 669 confirmed active cases of COVID-19 in Medicine Hat on Tuesday.

Medicine Hat has had 6,355 confirmed total cases – the 669 active, 5,602 recovered and there have been 82 deaths, one new today.

There are 38 new confirmed cases in the city and 46 new recoveries in the past 24 hours.

With the province limiting testing in the fifth wave, these confirmed cases do not accurately reflect the number of cases in the community.

Among all Medicine Hat residents, 78.1 per cent have received one dose of vaccine, 73.5 per cent have received two doses and 32.9 per cent have received three doses.

There are 35,322 known active cases in the province, down 2,146 in the past 24 hours, and 457,052 recovered cases in the province, up 4,659.

There have been 23,863 cases of the Omicron variant identified in Alberta, up from 23,025 Monday. Of those, 867 cases are in the South Zone.

Alberta’s total cases from the start of the pandemic is 495,953.

There are 1,980 new cases confirmed in the province in the past 24 hours.

Again these are only the confirmed cases and do not accurately reflect the number of cases in the province.

The province completed 5,012 tests in the past 24 hours.

The positivity rate is today is about 39.5 per cent.

Alberta has administered 8,314,131 doses of vaccine at the latest update.

In the last seven days, COVID was the primary or a contributing factor in 61.3 per cent of non-ICU hospitalizations and 67.9 per cent of ICU admissions.

Among new cases today, 27.1 per cent are unvaccinated, 4.7 per cent have had one dose, 41.9 have had two doses and 26.3 per cent have had three doses.

Among current hospitalizations, 29.9 per cent are unvaccinated, 4.7 per cent have had one dose, 41.1 per cent have had two doses and 24.3 per cent have had three doses.

Among Alberta’s total population, 80.4 per cent have received at least one dose of vaccine and 74.5 per cent have received two doses 33.2 per cent have received three doses.

There are nine city outbreaks listed on the AHS website — including the Medicine Hat Regional Hospital and Medicine Hat Remand Centre –, two in Brooks and one in Oyen.

There are 2,681 known active cases and 27,903 recovered in the South Zone. The death total in the zone is at 317.

The province-wide reproductive value for the week of Jan. 24-30 is 1.00. It is 1.04 in Calgary Zone, 0.96 in Edmonton Zone and 0.98 in the rest of Alberta.

At the last update from Jan 10-16, the numbers were 0.88 in the province, 0.80 in Calgary Zone, 0.87 in Edmonton Zone and 1.03 in the rest of Alberta.

Cypress County has totaled 1,070 confirmed cases. There are 84 active cases, 980 recovered and six deaths. 70.4 per cent of all residents have one dose of vaccine, 66.3 per cent have two doses and 24.9 per cent have had three doses.

The County of Forty Mile has 390 total confirmed cases. There are 11 active cases, 374 recovered and there have been five deaths. 43.8 per cent of all residents have one dose of vaccine, 40.6 per cent have two doses and 15.6 per cent have had three doses.

The MD of Taber has 1,537 total confirmed cases — 105 active cases, 1,414 recovered and there have been 18 deaths. 51.2 per cent of all residents have one dose of vaccine, 48 per cent have two doses and 19 per cent have had three doses.

Special Areas No. 2 has 324 total confirmed cases – 14 active cases, 305 recovered and there have been five deaths.

Brooks has 2,522 total confirmed cases — 144 active cases and 2,351 are recovered. Brooks has recorded 27 deaths.

The County of Newell has a total of 597 confirmed cases — 26 active cases, 563 recovered and there have been eight deaths. 70.5 per cent of all residents have one dose of vaccine, 65.4 per cent have two doses and 21.9 per cent have had three doses. County of Newell vaccination numbers include Brooks and part of Special Areas No. 2.

The County of Warner has 968 total confirmed cases. There are 79 active cases, 884 are recovered cases and there have been five deaths in the county. 63.3 per cent of all residents have one dose of vaccine, 58.1 per cent have two doses and 21.7 per cent have had three doses.

The City of Lethbridge has a total of 10,394 confirmed cases. There are 987 active cases, 9,332 recovered and there have been 75 deaths. Lethbridge County has 2,402 confirmed cases, 155 active cases, 2,226 recovered and there have been 21 deaths.

Again these are only the confirmed cases and do not accurately reflect the number of cases in the regions.

Not all the areas on the vaccination data map match the case count map.

The figures on alberta.ca are “up-to-date as of end of day Jan. 31, 2022.

Saskatchewan has a total of 119,272 cases, 11,370 considered active. There are 106,909 recovered cases and there have been 993 COVID-19 deaths in the province.