A post-holidays bump in Alberta’s COVID-19 hospitalizations appears to be on a downward trajectory, according to the latest figures released by the province.
Wednesday marked a return to the regularly-scheduled weekly release of COVID data. The last report included data from Dec. 20, 2022 to Jan. 4.
Wednesday’s data spanned from Jan. 5 to Jan. 9., and noted 878 are in hospital, 34 fewer than the previous reporting period. ICU admissions dropped by 9 to 31.
Hospitalizations had seen a month-long decline until around Christmas, but then climbed until around Jan. 4, and started falling again.
COVID hospitalizations in Alberta sit at levels last seen in mid-September.
On Tuesday, AHS reported the provincial ICU capacity, including surge beds, was at 88 per cent.
Two acute care hospitals in the province declared COVID-19 outbreaks recently. Outbreaks are determined when at least one person has caught the coronavirus.
On Monday, five individuals in a unit in the Westlock Healthcare Centre tested positive for COVID-19.
And Edmonton’s Royal Alexandra Hospital had three units declare outbreaks in the past week. On Monday, one unit had four patients and a healthcare worker test positive for COVID. That follows two units with a combined 14 patients and two healthcare workers tested positive on Friday.
In the five-day span of the latest release, 28 people’s deaths were determined to be caused by COVID-19, bringing Alberta’s pandemic death toll to 5,443.
In the past seven days, 981 COVID cases were documented and the seven-day positivity rate fell slightly to just over 15 per cent.
Those cases and positivity rates are based on PCR tests, which have been restricted to people with clinical risk factors or who live and/or work in high-risk settings since early 2022.