Alberta’s chief medical officer of health says the province is in a state of crisis due to the premature removal of all COVID-19 restrictions in July.
Dr. Deena Hinshaw told doctors during a conference call this week that the Delta variant spread much more quickly and had more severe outcomes than anticipated.
N-D-P leader Rachel Notley says everyone suspected Alberta’s “Open For Summer” plan set the trajectory for a crushing fourth wave of COVID-19 — but it was still disturbing to hear Dr. Hinshaw confirm it.
Notley adds that despite the confirmation, Dr. Hinshaw and Premier Jason Kenney have not yet announced any plan to deal with a surge of COVID cases pushing Alberta’s hospital system to the brink of collapse.
Meanwhile, 1,434 new cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed during the past 24 hours in Alberta. About 11,900 (11,880) tests were conducted for a test positivity rate of approximately 12.1 percent.
There are 822 individuals hospitalized in Alberta due to COVID-19. The number of COVID patients in intensive care units is 212, which is another record high for the province.
9 new deaths have occurred. The number of lives lost due to the virus in Alberta is 2,471.
The number of active cases of COVID-19 is 18,395 – down by 130 from September 12th.
1,985 new variant cases have been identified.
There are 5,323 active cases of COVID-19 in the Edmonton Zone, 5,136 in the Calgary Zone, and 2,699 in the Central Zone.
Crossfield remains at 33 active cases of the virus. Sundre is down to 45, the Three Hills/Highway 21 area remains at 52, the Didsbury/Carstairs/South Mountain View County area is down to 91, Sylvan Lake is down to 104, Olds is down to 110, Innisfail is up to 119, and Rocky Mountain House is down to 220.
Red Deer County remains at 237 active cases of COVID-19, while Mountain View County is down to 135.
More than 251,000 (251,475) Albertans have recovered from the virus.
As of September 13th, over 5.6 million (5,665,956) doses of vaccine have been administered in Alberta. In Olds, 62 percent of people of all ages have been immunized with at least one dose, while 55.8 percent are fully vaccinated.
(Contains content from The Canadian Press)
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