COVID-19 outbreak involving variant declared at Cross Cancer Institute in Edmonton

A COVID-19 outbreak involving at least one variant case was declared at the Cross Cancer Institute in Edmonton on April 5.

Three health-care workers and one patient linked to the outbreak tested positive for COVID-19, Alberta Health Services said.

That patient was transferred to the institute last month, and AHS said they died in late March.

“Sitewide asymptomatic testing of all staff begins tomorrow,” AHS spokesperson Kerry Williamson said Tuesday. “All inpatients have been tested, with no additional positive cases found. The unit is closed to admissions.

“In addition, all health-care workers at the Cross will receive an invitation to be immunized, due to the fact that the outbreak includes a variant case.”

“We continue to base our immunization schedule on best evidence and the decisions of our public health experts,” Williamson said.

According to AHS, no surgeries will be delayed due to this outbreak.

Alberta is currently in Phase 2B of its COVID-19 vaccine rollout plan.

Starting Wednesday, anyone born between 2005 and 1974 with underlying health conditions — including cancer patients, transplant recipients, people living with disabilities, dementia and other conditions that put them at a higher risk of severe outcomes of COVID-19 — is eligible for the vaccine.

Some health-care workers aren’t eligible until Phase 2C.

That phase includes “anyone working in patient care facilities or providing services directly to clients in the community for Alberta Health Services, Covenant Health, Alberta Precision Labs, DynaLife, and students undertaking placement practicums in clinical areas,” the province’s website explains.

Phase 2C is expected in April and May.

On March 31, a petition signed by more than 100 Alberta doctors advocated for community practitioners to be moved up for vaccination priority. The petition was sent to the health minister, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, and the president of AHS.

“We are a group of physicians in Alberta who would like to ask for urgent and fast immunization of all front-line health-care workers in the province against COVID-19,” the letter reads.

“We are concerned that with the rise of variants in the province, the spread of the virus will soon happen in our health-care facilities, including the community clinics who are seeing and managing the majority of patients including COVID patients,” it continued.

“We know in the rest of our country as well as in most other developed countries, all health-care workers have been included in the priority vaccination campaigns to protect them and help the health-care system that is based on all settings, community, hospital and long-term based, running properly and safely.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "We know in the rest of our country as well as in most other developed countries, all health-care workers have been included in the priority vaccination campaigns to protect them and help the health-care system that is based on all settings, community, hospital and long-term based, running properly and safely.

“In Alberta, a group of mostly community-based physicians and their staff, as well as some hospital-based health-care workers, have been excluded from the priority phase, which is causing increased anxiety and uncertainty on already-burdened-by-the-pandemic health-care workers in these settings.

“We would like to ask for an urgent additional stream of vaccination for these workers.”