By Chris Brown

Trending down in Alberta too

New COVID-19 case rate, hospitalizations dropping in Medicine Hat

May 11, 2022 | 4:48 PM

The latest data from the province and wastewater tracking appear to show that Medicine Hat has passed the worst of latest wave of COVID-19.

Medicine Hat’s COVID seven-day new case rate per 100,000 people is 82.2 on 56 new cases in the past seven days. The previous period’s rate was 104.1 and there were 71 new cases.

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

There have been 7,856 confirmed total cases in Medicine Hat and 97 deaths.

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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.

The May 9 wastewater data for Medicine Hat shows the city’s weekly average of genomic copies (gc) per one millilitre (mL) of wastewater is 55.77. It’s steadily been dropping from 215.87 on April 14.

Among all Medicine Hat residents, 78.6 per cent have received one dose of vaccine, 75.1 per cent have received two doses and 36.1 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 three of those in the ICU. There are 16 inpatients at Medicine Hat Regional Hospital with one COVID-19 positive patient in the ICU.

Chinook Regional Hospital has 34 inpatients with two in the ICU. Crowsnest Pass Health Centre has five inpatients; Pincher Creek Health Centre has four; Taber Health Centre has three; Cardston Health Centre has two; Bassano Health Centre, Big Country Hospital, Bow Island Health Centre, and Brooks Health Centre have one each.

Health Minister Jason Copping said at the weekly update the province-wide wastewater and transmission data is also trending down.

“And most important of all I’m pleased to report that hospitalizations decreased over the past week, including patients in ICU with COVID,” said Copping.

He said the numbers fluctuate from day to day and they won’t necessarily drop in a straight line from here.

“But it looks like the peak in hospitalizations was April 26, around two weeks ago,” he added.

There are now 1,225 Albertans in hospital with COVID-19, 37 of which are in ICU, and 4,391 deaths. Seventy Albertans have died from COVID in the past week.

Alberta’s total cases from the start of the pandemic is 575,185.

There are 4,379 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 8,772,287 doses of vaccine at the latest update.

In the last seven days, COVID was the primary or a contributing factor in 63.7 per cent of non-ICU hospitalizations and 79.3 per cent of ICU admissions.

Among current hospitalizations, 19.6 per cent are unvaccinated, 3.6 per cent have had one dose, 27.4 per cent have had two doses and 49.5 per cent have had three doses.

Among Alberta’s total population, 81.3 per cent have received at least one dose of vaccine and 77 per cent have received two doses 37.6 per cent have received three doses.

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