The number of active COVID-19 cases in Alberta continued to rise, reaching 5,354 on Monday. That is up from 4,438 on Friday.
On Monday, Alberta Health said it had identified 392 new COVID-19 cases out of about 5,300 tests in the last 24 hours. On Sunday, 451 new cases were identified from about 7,200 tests and on Saturday, 564 new cases were identified out of about 8,000 tests.
Alberta’s positivity rate sat at around 7.5 per cent Monday.
There were 161 Albertans in hospital with COVID-19 as of Monday, including 43 in ICU.
“Of the 118 non-ICU, 76.3 per cent are unvaccinated and 7.5 per cent partially vaccinated,” Dr. Deena Hinshaw tweeted. “Of the 43 in ICU, 90.7 per cent are unvaccinated and 4.7 per cent partially vaccinated.”
Since Aug. 12, one death from COVID-19 was reported to Alberta Health, bringing the provincial death toll to 2,333.
As of Monday, 76.8 per cent of Albertans 12 and older had received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine and 67.9 per cent had received two doses.
On Friday, Hinshaw announced remaining COVID-19 measures that were set to be lifted or eased on Aug. 16 would remain in place for another six weeks.
Alberta’s chief medical officer of health announced the province would pause the plan to significantly scale back COVID-19 testing and contact tracing and to no longer legally require people with the disease to self-isolate.
“We are not going backwards. We are pausing to monitor and assess before taking a step forward,” Hinshaw said Friday. “If monitoring confirms our original expectations that a rise in cases will not lead to high levels of (hospitalizations) and we do not see evidence of increased risk for severe disease for children, we will proceed with implementing the next set of changes after Sept. 27.”
Alberta identified 582 new coronavirus cases on Friday and the total number of active COVID-19 cases in the province reached 4,438.
The number of people in Alberta hospitals with COVID-19 also rose on Friday up to 152, six more than the previous day. Of those, 37 people were in intensive care.
“Test, trace, isolate are such fundamental principles of public health that it was absolutely essential that that didn’t end right now with cases going up and already seeing an uptick in hospitalizations,” Calgary epidemiologist Dr. Kelly Burak said.
Burak agrees with Hinshaw that vaccine uptake is the way forward and how we’re going to mitigate the magnitude of the fourth wave of COVID-19, but adds it’s not clear how the government plans to make that happen.
“How are we going to get vaccine rates up? How are we going to encourage more people to wear masks?” he asked.
“We have to, in the next few weeks, get more individuals vaccinated and we have to be considering wearing masks indoors when we’re around others, even if we’re vaccinated, to help mitigate the spread of the Delta variant and the impact of the fourth wave.”
Alberta currently has the highest active COVID-19 case count in Canada.