(Government of Alberta)

By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

THURSDAY UPDATE

Active cases continue sharp rise in Red Deer and Alberta

Aug 19, 2021 | 4:09 PM

Red Deer now has 137 active cases of COVID-19, up 19 from Wednesday, reaching the highest total the city’s seen since June 11.

Recoveries rose three to 5,797, as the total number of COVID-19 cases attributed to Red Deer rose by 22 in the last day to 5,977.

Red Deer’s death toll stemming from COVID-19 remains 43, with the last one reported July 6.

Active cases across Central Zone (one-day change)

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Red Deer County: 32 (+9)

Sylvan Lake: 47 (+9)

Lacombe County: 39 (+6)

City of Lacombe: 23 (+8)

Ponoka County: 46 (+8)

Brazeau County: 17 (+1)

Clearwater County: 27 (+3)

Mountain View County: 28 (+4)

Olds: 16 (–)

Kneehill County: 10 (-1)

County of Stettler: 18 (-1)

The Central Zone as a whole has 551 active cases as of Thursday, up 72 in one day. There are 21 hospitalizations, up three, and four people are receiving intensive care at Red Deer Regional Hospital, the same as yesterday. The Central Zone has had 174 deaths linked to COVID-19, with two reported today.

The zone’s one-day positivity rate for Aug. 18 is 11.17 per cent with 815 tests done.

To contrast, Calgary Zone’s positivity rate for Aug. 18 was 5.74 per cent, Edmonton Zone was 9.09, North Zone was 20.09 (lowest immunization rate), and South Zone was 10.07. Yesterday, Central Zone reported a 13.28 per cent positivity rate for Aug. 17.

PROVINCIAL NUMBERS

Today, Alberta added 817 new cases of COVID-19. The new cases are out of 9,971 test results for a seven-day positivity rate of 7.2 per cent.

The active caseload is now 6,367, up 434 in the last day.

Of those, 4,682 are variants of concern.

There are 198 Albertans hospitalized due to the virus, up 14, including 43 in intensive care, down five.

Of the 155 not in ICU, 122 are unvaccinated, 11 have had one dose, and 22 have two doses.

Of the 43 in ICU, 40 are unvaccinated, one has had one dose, and two have two doses.

Sadly, four new deaths linked to COVID-19 were reported in the past day, meaning the provincial death toll is now 2,342.

VACCINATIONS

Alberta has delivered 5,469,437 vaccine doses as of Aug. 18, up 10,099 in the last day.

77.1 (+0.1) per cent of Alberta’s eligible 12+ population has received at least one dose (65.6% total population), and 68.3 (+0.1)per cent of those eligible are fully vaccinated (58.1% total population).

In Red Deer, 62,249 (67.9% of eligible & 58.5% *total population) people have received at least one dose, up 61 in the last day. Meanwhile, 55,640 (60.7%/52.3%) are fully vaccinated with two doses, up 92. (*Government of Alberta uses a population of 106,395 for Red Deer; of those 91,672 are eligible)