By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

FRIDAY UPDATE

176 of 221 Albertans in hospital with COVID-19 are unvaccinated

Aug 20, 2021 | 4:05 PM

Red Deer now sits at 146 active cases of COVID-19, up nine since Thursday.

The city’s total number of recorded cases is up 18 to 5,995, while recoveries are up nine to 5,806.

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

LOOK-BACK: On this day one year ago, there were 73 total cases of COVID-19 recorded in the city (+6 over the previous week), with nine active (-1) and zero deaths.

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Active cases across Central Zone (one-day change)

Red Deer County: 40 (+8)

Sylvan Lake: 44 (-3)

Lacombe County: 37 (-2)

Lacombe: 25 (+2)

Ponoka County: 56 (+10)

Brazeau County: 23 (+6)

Clearwater County: 28 (+1)

Mountain View County: 30 (+2)

Olds: 19 (+3)

Kneehill County: 8 (-2)

County of Stettler: 17 (-1)

The Central Zone as a whole has 587 active cases as of Friday, up 36 from Thursday. There are 25 hospitalizations, up four, with four people receiving intensive care at Red Deer Regional Hospital, the same as yesterday. The Central Zone has had 175 deaths linked to COVID-19, with one reported today.

The zone’s one-day positivity rate for Aug. 19 is 10.7 per cent with 645 tests done.

PROVINCIAL NUMBERS

Across Alberta, another 749 new cases of COVID-19 were announced Friday out of 9,005 tests. That makes for a seven-day positivity rate of 7.52 per cent (up from 5.63% one week ago, and 3.99% two weeks ago).

Of today’s new cases, 558 are unvaccinated.

Active cases across the province are up 342 to 6,709. A week ago, active cases totalled 4,438.

Of the active cases, 5,406 are variants of concern, or 80.6 per cent. (Variant case numbers are not updated daily like most other data)

There are 221 Albertans hospitalized due to the virus, up 23, including 48 in intensive care, up five.

Of the 173 in hospital but not in ICU, 131 are unvaccinated, 12 have one dose, and 30 have two doses.

Of the 48 in ICU, 45 are unvaccinated, one has one dose, and two have two doses.

The province’s death toll is now listed as 2,343, which is up one from yesterday, and up 11 over the last week.

VACCINATIONS

On the vaccine front, Alberta has now administered 5,477,098 doses, up 7,661 in the last day, and up 53,364 over the last week (7,623 daily average).

Across the province, 77.2 per cent of Alberta’s eligible 12+ population has received at least one dose (65.6% total population), and 68.5 per cent of those eligible are fully vaccinated (58.2% total population).

In Red Deer, 62,330 (67.99% of eligible & 58.6% *total population) people have received at least one dose, up 81 in the last day. Meanwhile, 55,785 (60.9%/52.4%) are fully vaccinated with two doses, up 145. (*Government of Alberta uses a population of 106,395 for Red Deer; of those 91,672 are eligible)