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On FridayDr. Deena Hinshaw, the province’s chief medical officer of health, highlighted that two people in their 30s died from COVID-19 this week. She said severe outcomes are not limited to those at the very end of their lives.
“While both had comorbidities these were not on their own life-threatening,” Hinshaw said. “The average age of people experiencing hospitalization is dropping and about one in four people who need hospital care for COVID-19 and one out of every six in ICU with COVID-19 have no pre-existing medical conditions.”
But pre-existing medical conditions can also be very common, such as high blood pressure and diabetes, Hinshaw said.
“Most Albertans will have a family member or friend with these conditions. We must remember that our actions protect these people, as well as ourselves,” she said.
As of Saturday, 320 people are in hospital in Alberta with COVID-19 and of those 56 are in the intensive care unit.
Alberta Health Services (AHS) is working to increase ICU capacity, Hinshaw said. There are 173 general adult ICU beds for COVID-19 patients and other patients who require intensive care.
“I want to assure Albertans that as more COVID-19 patients require intensive care, AHS is able to add additional intensive care capacity,” Hinshaw said. “AHS has already readied additional ICU beds in Edmonton Zone and additional ICU spaces in Calgary Zone will be readied if needed.
“This is where most of the capacity is likely to be required but creating this capacity means stopping or delaying other services and this is the impact we want to avoid.”
Across the province, there are 11,274 active cases, while the Edmonton Zone, which includes the city and surrounding municipalities, has 4,941 active cases of the virus.
The Edmonton Zone added 718 more confirmed cases of COVID-19 Saturday, for a total of 17,519 since the pandemic began.
In the city of Edmonton, there are 3,895 active cases of COVID-19, or 381.3 per 100,000 people.
The new statistics were sent out in a news update Saturday afternoon.
