The sharp rise in active COVID-19 cases over the past week should be seen as a “wake-up call” by every Albertan, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta’s chief medical officer of health, said Thursday at a new conference.
The province reported two more deaths on Thursday and 114 new cases of the illness.
“This needs to be a wake-up call,” Hinshaw said. “I am very concerned by these numbers.”
The use of acute-care beds to treat COVID-19 patients is approaching the highest number of admissions on any single day that Alberta has seen, Hinshaw said. The peak of 113 hospital admissions came on April 30. The peak usage of intensive-care beds came on May 1, when 23 patients were in ICU.
On Thursday, 106 people were being treated in hospital for the disease, with 21 of them in ICU beds.
“Two weeks ago, we had seven Albertans in the ICU,” Hinshaw said. “Now we have triple that number.
“This is also a reminder that severe outcomes are not limited to the elderly. Twenty-four of those currently in hospital are under the age of 60, including seven who are between the ages of 20 and 39.”
While younger people have a lower risk of severe outcomes, she said, lower risk does not mean zero risk. And young people are as much at risk as anyone of passing the virus on to others.
One out of 50 people aged 30 to 39 who were diagnosed with the illness required admission to hospital, Hinshaw said. For those aged 40 and 69, one in 20 required hospitalization. For the 70 to 79 age group, one in 10 people who caught the illness died. For those over 80, the odds of dying were one in four.
“The risk of death does not seem to be much different when comparing those living in continuing care versus those in the community,” Hinshaw said.
Though Calgary’s numbers have been climbing fastest, even rural areas are seeing rising numbers, she said. The Central zone, which has not seen high case numbers so far, now has 33 people in hospital, seven of them in the ICU.
“I believe the recent increase in numbers is in part reflective of the fact that fatigue has set in,” Hinshaw said. “After several months of not catching the virus, it is easy to say that you feel fine, so why wash your hands? Why stay two metres apart in public? Why avoid sharing food at a barbecue?”
Alberta has seen the number of active cases rise by more than 400 over the past week.
An Alberta Health update released on July 16 reported 854 active cases. The most recent update, released Thursday, reported 1,293 cases — an increase of 439.
