The number of people in Alberta ICUs remained fairly steady Tuesday into Wednesday as the province continued to grapple with the fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Wednesday, there were 280 patients in Alberta ICUs. Of those, 203 were receiving care for COVID-19. That’s compared to 283 ICU patients on Tuesday, with 218 of those people receiving care for COVID-19.
“While the number of patients in ICU fluctuates constantly, the number of patients in ICU has increased by 0.3 per cent over the past seven days,” Alberta Health Services said in an update Wednesday.
As of about 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, the Calgary zone was operating at 67 per cent capacity, the Edmonton zone at 79 per cent capacity, the Central zone at 88 per cent capacity, the South zone at 67 per cent capacity and the North zone at 89 per cent capacity.
Alberta has a baseline of 173 ICU beds and has added 203 additional spaces to combat the surge in admissions.
On Wednesday, the province reported an additional 786 new cases of COVID-19 were confirmed over the past 24 hours, bringing the active number of cases to 10,824.
The province conducted 12,114 COVID-19 tests over the past 24 hours.
An additional 18 deaths were reported to Alberta Health over the past day.
Four deaths were reported in the Calgary zone: a woman and a man in their 80s and a man in his 60s, both with pre-existing conditions, as well as a man in his 60s with no known pre-existing conditions.
One death was reported in the Edmonton zone: a man in his 70s with pre-existing conditions.
Four of the deaths were reported in the Central Zone: a man in his 60s, a woman in her 70s and a woman in her 90s, all with pre-existing conditions, and a man in his 70s with no known conditions.
Six of the deaths were reported in the North zone: a man in his 50s and a man and a woman in their 80s, both with pre-existing conditions, as well as a woman and two men in their 70s and a woman in her 40s with no known pre-existing conditions.
Two of the deaths were reported in the South zone: a man in his 30s and a man in his 90s, both with pre-existing conditions.
There have been 3,006 COVID-19 deaths reported in Alberta to date.
As of Wednesday, 86.2 per cent of eligible Albertans over the age of 12 had received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine. Of the same group, 77.9 per cent were fully vaccinated.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, 317,750 Albertans have contracted COVID-19 and 303,920 have recovered.