By Chris Brown

Three COVID deaths in city this week

Health minister says COVID-19 infections may have plateaued for this wave

Apr 20, 2022 | 4:36 PM

Alberta is experiencing increases in virus circulation and hospital admissions but they are smaller and moving more slowly than was seen in December and January, says the health minister.

Jason Copping says those increases from the BA.2 subvariant were expected based on what other jurisdictions experienced and the recent exposure to BA.1.

Copping also said BA.2 infections may be at a plateau. PCR test positivity rates from April 12-18 are similar to the previous period, 25.9 per cent to 26.6, and wastewater levels remain mostly below levels seen during the initial Omicron wave at the beginning of the year.

“More importantly we’re not seeing the same impact on hospital admissions that we’ve seen before,” he said during the weekly Wednesday update. Those are up about three per cent to 1,126, a similar increase from the week before. There are 43 Albertans in ICU with COVID-19 at the latest update, down from 46.

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“The total number of patients in our hospitals has been stable for the past couple of months. COVID admissions have increased but the total hasn’t. The total is within normal bedbase overall and normal for this time of year,” Copping added.

For the entire health system, Copping said ICU admission have been within normal bedbase for several weeks and a “near-normal” volume of surgeries is being completed.

“We are transitioning to living with COVID. Not by denying it but by relying on the proven protection of vaccines,” he said, encouraging Albertans to continue to get vaccinated and get their booster shots when eligible.

Dr. Deena Hinshaw said even though there has been an increase in the number of breakthrough cases among vaccinated Albertans, the data backs up the effectiveness of a full vaccine series.

“It is very clear that vaccines are critically important in lowering the risks for hospitalization and death,” she said.

Looking at the data for Albertans ages five years old and up, those not vaccinated were more than three times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19, said the chief medical officer of health. They were almost eight times more likely to be admitted to ICU than those with three doses of vaccine.

In the same period for those 80 years of age and older, those who were not vaccinated were more than four times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID in the last four months and almost six times more likely to die from COVID than those with three doses of vaccine, she said.

Hinshaw said people may not notice or shrug off minor symptoms going into spring and will continue to go about their daily business. She said it’s important to remember that can have serious consequences for those close to them and Alberta’s rules around isolation remain the same.

“if you test positive or have symptoms of COVID-19, you are required to isolate at home and away from others,” she said. That’s for a minimum of five days or until symptoms have resolved, whichever is longer, for those with two or more doses of vaccine. For all others, the requirement is 10 days or until symptoms resolve.

Medicine Hat’s seven-day new case rate per 100,000 people is 155.6 on 106 new cases in the past seven days. The previous period’s rate was 189.4 and there were 129 new cases.

The city is in the “high” classification for seven-day case rate, down from “highest” last week. There are four classifications – highest, high, medium and low.

There have been 7,615 confirmed total cases in Medicine Hat and 95 deaths, three new in the past week.

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

Among all Medicine Hat residents, 78.5 per cent have received one dose of vaccine, 75 per cent have received two doses and 35.6 per cent have received three doses.

A spokesperson for Alberta Health Services told CHAT News on Wednesday there are currently 68 COVID-19 positive inpatients in the South Zone with two of those in the ICU. There are 19 inpatients at Medicine Hat Regional Hospital with one COVID-19 positive patient in the ICU.

Chinook Regional Hospital has 35 inpatients with one in the ICU. Taber Health Centre has four inpatients; Cardston Health Centre has three; Crowsnest Pass Health Centre has two; Brooks Health Centre has two; Raymond Health Centre has two and Bow Island Health Centre has one.

There are now 1,126 Albertans in hospital with COVID-19, 43 of which are in ICU, and 4,190 deaths.

Alberta’s total cases from the start of the pandemic is 558,483.

There are 6,125 new cases confirmed in the province over the past seven days.

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

Alberta has administered 8,664,435 doses of vaccine at the latest update.

In the last seven days, COVID was the primary or a contributing factor in 69.8 per cent of non-ICU hospitalizations and 67.9 per cent of ICU admissions.

Among current hospitalizations, 23.5 per cent are unvaccinated, 3.3 per cent have had one dose, 25.6 per cent have had two doses and 47.6 per cent have had three doses.

Among Alberta’s total population, 81.1 per cent have received at least one dose of vaccine and 76.8 per cent have received two doses 37.1 per cent have received three doses.

More detailed information is available on the province’s COVID-19 dashboard.