By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

THURSDAY UPDATE

ICU situation continues to be dire, doctors Hinshaw and Yiu say

Sep 23, 2021 | 4:41 PM

*STATS BELOW

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Alberta continues to face unprecedented challenges to its health system in the fourth wave of COVID-19, driven by unvaccinated people.

“100 per cent of new ICU admissions were in Albertans who did not have any vaccine protection,” said chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw.

She said Albertans who are not fully vaccinated are about 15-times more likely than those with vaccine protection to be hospitalized with COVID-19 and about 40-time more likely to be admitted to the ICU. About 77 per cent of Albertans in hospital and 92 per cent of those in ICU have not been fully vaccinated.

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An average of 23 people per day have been admitted to ICU in the past five days, said Alberta Health Services president and CEO Dr. Verna Yiu.

“It’s tragic that we are only able to keep pace with these sort of numbers because in part some of our ICU patients have passed away,” she said.

Hinshaw also addressed persistent questions and rumours on social media that vaccines are not working against the delta variant

“This is categorically untrue,” said Hinshaw, adding that in Alberta vaccines have proven to be 85 per cent effective against the delta variant after two doses.

She said no vaccine is 100 per cent effective and a very small percentage of fully vaccinated people could still get COVID if exposed to the disease.

Hinshaw added that as has been the case this week, the majority of the new deaths were people who were not vaccinated at all. A small number were people who were double vaccinated with pre-existing health conditions.

Added Yiu: “Every day, we see the numbers. There are people behind the numbers. They are spouses and partners, grandparents, uncles and aunts, sons and daughters, peoples’ best friends and loved ones. The other people I think of regularly are those Albertans who’ve been impacted by our decision to postpone surgeries. Having your surgery delayed can be extremely traumatizing, particularly if you’ve been waiting a long time, and especially if your surgery is potentially life-changing.”

Sarah Hoffman, NDP Critic for Education, said following Thursday’s live update that contact tracing in schools must be restored.

“Tracing in schools has been done in previous waves and the UCP government needs to do whatever it takes to reimplement it now,” she said. “Only yesterday, British Columbia returned to a policy of tracing cases in schools. Alberta must follow suit and undertake every possible effort to stop the spread of this preventable disease in children.”

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Red Deer now has 762 active cases of COVID-19, down five from Wednesday.

Meantime, recoveries rose 62 to 6,670, as the total number of COVID-19 cases attributed to Red Deer rose by 58 in the last day to 7,487.

Red Deer’s death toll stemming from COVID-19 is now 55, with one reported today. There are currently 22 people in ICU at Red Deer Regional Hospital due to COVID.

Active cases across Central Zone (one-day change)

Red Deer County: 338 (+4)

Sylvan Lake: 133 (+5)

Lacombe County: 191 (-4)

City of Lacombe: 139 (+7)

Ponoka County: 269 (+3)

Brazeau County: 255 (+14)

Clearwater County: 286 (+8)

Mountain View County: 162 (-5)

Olds: 94 (+4)

Kneehill County: 82 (+10)

County of Stettler: 140 (-16)

The Central Zone as a whole has 3,591 active cases as of Thursday, up 76. There are 189 hospitalizations, up five, and 22 people are receiving intensive care at Red Deer Regional Hospital, down one. The Central Zone has had 234 deaths linked to COVID-19, with three reported today.

The zone’s one-day positivity rate for Sept. 22 is 15.12 per cent with 2,203 tests done. The rolling seven-day average for the zone is 16.30 per cent, up from 16.28 per cent one week ago.

PROVINCIAL NUMBERS

Today, Alberta added 1,660 new cases of COVID-19. The new cases are out of 17,896 test results for a one-day positivity rate of 9.4 per cent. The seven-day positivity rate is 10.33 per cent.

The active caseload is now 20,180, down 124, with 7,455 of those being variants of concern.

Active cases by age:

Under 1: 137
1-4: 837
5-9: 1818
10-19: 3172
20-29: 2920
30-39: 3867
40-49: 2921
50-59: 1864
60-69: 1352
70-79: 728
80+: 554

There are 1,058 Albertans hospitalized due to the virus, up 18, including 226 in intensive care, down four.

Of the 832 not in ICU, 586 are unvaccinated, 45 have had one dose, and 201 have two doses.

Of the 226 in ICU, 199 are unvaccinated, seven have had one dose, and 20 have had two doses.

Sadly, 17 new deaths linked to COVID-19 were reported in the past day, meaning the provincial death toll is now 2,611.

VACCINATIONS

Alberta has delivered 5,896,827 vaccine doses as of Sept. 22, up 21,826.

82.0 per cent of Alberta’s eligible 12+ population has received at least one dose (69.8% total population), and 73.2 per cent of those eligible are fully vaccinated (62.3% total population).

In Red Deer, 67,666 (73.8% of eligible & 63.6% *total population) people have received at least one dose, up 313. Meanwhile, 60,066 (65.5%/56.5%) are fully vaccinated with two doses, up 187. (*Government of Alberta uses a population of 106,395 for Red Deer; of those 91,672 are eligible)

WATCH THURSDAY’S LIVE UPDATE FROM DR. HINSHAW IN ITS ENTIRETY BELOW:

(with files from CHAT News Today)