Peak of third wave likely still to come: Dr. Hinshaw

Province-wide, Alberta reported another 2,211 cases of COVID-19 on Thursday out of 19,909 tests for a positivity rate of 11.1 per cent.

Active cases in the province are up 341 to 24,497, an all-time high. Meanwhile, Alberta added 1,870 recovered cases in the past 24 hours for a total of 176,536.

There are now 654 Albertans hospitalized due to COVID-19, down 12, including 146 in intensive care, equal to yesterday.

Alberta added zero deaths stemming from COVID-19 on Thursday, with the total sitting at 2,102.

The province has administered 1,732,582 doses of vaccine at the latest update, with 308,027 people now fully vaccinated.

Active cases (change) and rate/100,000 people around central Alberta:

Red Deer County: 218 (+8) – 656.8

Sylvan Lake: 164 (+7) – 962.8 (5th highest in Alberta)

Lacombe County: 184 (+3) – 834.3 (12th highest in Alberta)

Lacombe: 172 (+1) – 914.8 (6th highest in Alberta)

Ponoka County: 175 (-5) – 635.8

Maskwacis: 44 (as of Wednesday) (-4 from May 5)

Clearwater County: 69 (-15) – 341

Brazeau County: 88 (-3) – 523.6

Mountain View County: 91 (+1) – 394.5

Olds: 110 (-5) – 884.7 (8th highest in Alberta)

Kneehill County: 62 (-5) – 570.3

County of Stettler: 130 (+10) – 1038.3 (4th highest in Alberta)

The Central Zone as a whole has 2,899 active cases as of Thursday, an increase of 11 over Wednesday. There are 63 hospitalizations, the same as yesterday, and 10 people are in the ICU at Red Deer Regional Hospital, up one. The zone has now had 137 deaths stemming from COVID-19, including zero over the past day.

THE PROVINCE

Alberta’s top doctor says that even as they are becoming more available to Albertans, vaccines alone are not enough to stop the third wave of COVID-19.

Dr. Deena Hinshaw says she knows that any restriction can have its own impact on people’s health and wishes that these were not necessary.

“But they are. These restrictions are absolutely necessary if we are to reduce community transmission and stop cases from getting out of control,” she said during her Thursday update.

She said the first and second waves showed how quickly cases can spread and the more rapid the spread, the more difficult it is to bend the curve back down.

She said that happened even before the province was hit with the more infectious variants.

“We don’t yet know if we have hit the peak of new cases. Our provincial r-value of 1.12 last week tells us cases are continuing to grow. That’s why implementing the measures now is so critical,” she said. “We all need to significantly reduce the number of interactions we have in-person every day in every part of our lives.”

She said cases have risen to the point that they simply cannot target one sector or group.

“Whether it is social gatherings, faith services, esthetics locations or fitness classes, each activity involves Albertans mingling in person and risks exposure to the virus, Hinshaw said.

Other jurisdictions have bent the curve as more people have been vaccinated.

“This will happen here too as more and more of us step up to get vaccine and form part of a protective wall around our communities so we don’t have to go through these types of widespread restrictions again,” said Hinshaw.

VARIANTS

There are now 13,549 active cases in the province known to be variants, down 809 from Thursday.

Now 55.3 per cent of all active cases in Alberta are variants, down more than four percentage points from yesterday.

There have been 100 deaths from variants, none reported today.

Central Zone has recorded 4,210 variant cases, with the zone’s first case this week of the B.1.351 version. The remainder are nearly all the B.1.1.7 variant, with 107 cases of the P.1 variant. There are 1,536 active variant cases in Central Zone, and 10 people have died.

Dr. Deena Hinshaw will give another live update earlier next week.

(with file from Chris Brown/CHATNewsToday.ca)

by Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

Peak of third wave likely still to come: Dr. Hinshaw

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