By Chris Brown

Known active cases up in Medicine Hat

‘It’s time to move forward’: health minister on COVID

Mar 16, 2022 | 4:15 PM

Alberta’s health minister says early indications are that relaxing public health measures in early February has not caused an increase in COVID cases or more pressure on the health system.

“We continue to see a decline or plateau in both our lagging and leading indicators,” said Jason Copping on Wednesday afternoon.

He said there’s been some variation in the positivity rate for PCR tests but overall, since Step One began, it has dropped by seven per cent. Copping also said there’s been a steady decline in hospitalizations and ICU admission, down about 40 per cent since the lifting of measures began.

“COVID is not over but it’s time to move forward. We’re learning to live with it and each of us will do that in our own way,” said the health minister.

Starting next week the province will reduce case and outbreak reporting to once per week, on Wednesdays. Copping also announced the province will wind down its program that provides employers and service providers with rapid test kits.

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As of April 1, they will only be available to those who care for vulnerable populations, such as AHS facilities, long-term care, schools and those who look after vulnerable populations. Free kits are still available at pharmacies across the province.

He also said that AHS walk-in pediatric clinics will offer more flexible hours for vaccinations.

Dr. Deena Hinshaw said COVID has taken almost four times as many lives in the past two years as all infectious diseases did in the three years before COVID.

Editor’s Note: Until the province goes to weekly updates on March 23, CHAT News will update the numbers, as below, on Mondays and Fridays, as well as on days the government provides live media updates.

For now, more detailed COVID statistics can be found on the province’s COVID dashboard.

There are 124 confirmed active cases of COVID-19 in Medicine Hat on Wednesday.

Medicine Hat has had 7,076 confirmed total cases – the 124 active, 6,863 recovered and there have been 89 deaths.

There are 28 new cases and 15 recovered cases since the Monday update.

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, 78.4 per cent have received one dose of vaccine, 74.7 per cent have received two doses and 34.8 per cent have received three doses.

An AHS spokesperson told CHAT News Friday that there are currently 87 COVID-19 positive inpatients in the South Zone with five of those in the ICU. There are 19 inpatients at Medicine Hat Regional Hospital with two COVID-19 positive patients in the ICU.

Chinook Regional Hospital has 47 inpatients with three in the ICU. Taber Health Centre has four inpatients; Cardston Health Centre has two; Bassano Health Centre, Brooks Health Centre, and Crowsnest Pass Health Centre have one each.

There are now 989 Albertans in hospital with COVID-19, 70 of which are in ICU, and 4,013 deaths. The province revised the number of COVID deaths between December and February following further investigation.

There are 6,449 known active cases in the province and 522,702 recovered cases.

Alberta’s total cases from the start of the pandemic is 533,164.

There are 593 new cases confirmed in the province on Wednesday on 3,166 tests.

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

The positivity rate for the period is about 18.7 per cent.

Alberta has administered 8,544,273 doses of vaccine at the latest update.

In the last seven days, COVID was the primary or a contributing factor in 69.5 per cent of non-ICU hospitalizations and 73.1 per cent of ICU admissions.

Among new cases today, 24 per cent are unvaccinated, 1.3 per cent have had one dose, 28.8 have had two doses and 45.8 per cent have had three doses.

Among current hospitalizations, 32.4 per cent are unvaccinated, 4 per cent have had one dose, 30.7 per cent have had two doses and 32.9 per cent have had three doses.

Among Alberta’s total population, 81 per cent have received at least one dose of vaccine and 76.2 per cent have received two doses 35.9 per cent have received three doses.

There have been 53,046 cases of the Omicron variant identified in Alberta. Of those, 3,338 cases are in the South Zone.