Alberta reports 41 new COVID-19 deaths, number of coronavirus patients in hospitals rises

EDITOR’S NOTE: The original version of this story incorrectly said Alberta added 22,955 cases of COVID-19 on the weekend. That is the number of tests that were completed. The total number of new cases has been corrected and we regret the error.

The number of patients in Alberta hospitals who have COVID-19 rose by 113 over the weekend.

Alberta Health posted updated pandemic-related data on the government’s website late Monday night. Chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw tweeted that the delay was due to “ongoing technical issues.”

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The number of people with COVID-19 in intensive care units in Alberta increased ever so slightly over the weekend, up to 108 on Monday from 107 on Friday.

Alberta Health reported Monday that is has attributed 41 more deaths to COVID-19, bringing the total number of fatalities in the province attributed to the disease to 3,470 since the pandemic began.

The province reported that thousands of new cases of COVID-19 were identified over the weekend (4,069 on Jan. 21, 2,633 on Jan. 22 and 1,801 on Jan. 23). However, health officials have noted that the actual number of Albertans with COVID-19 is likely at least 10 times higher than the reported numbers since PCR testing has been restricted mostly just to people in high-risk settings amid the pandemic’s fifth wave.

The most recently published positivity rate in the province was 35.31 per cent and was posted on Jan. 20.

Despite the new cases reported over the weekend, the total number of confirmed and active COVID-19 cases in the province actually dropped to 55,685 on Monday, down from 61,615 on Friday.

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The Calgary zone has more active cases (26,993) than any other region in the province, followed by the Edmonton zone (18,569), the Central zone (3,929), the South zone (2,841) and the North zone (2,773). The are 580 active cases that have not been linked to any particular zone.