The total number of COVID-19 deaths in Alberta rose by 20 to 4,652 after the last reporting week, provincial data show. The number of Albertans in hospital with COVID-19 has risen to 559, including 23 ICU patients. There were 552 hospitalizations, including 16 people in ICU, a week ago. The province’s seven-day PCR test positivity rate is 22.41 percent, an increase of about 4.1 percentage points over the previous week. Through these tests, 1,691 new cases of COVID-19 were detected from July 12 to 18 — 330 fewer than the previous reporting week. More virus is believed to be spreading throughout the community, however, because the data does not include positive rapid test results and few people are eligible for PCR testing, according to the provincial government’s eligibility rules. Of all Albertans, including those who are not eligible, 77.4 per cent have received two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. 81.6 percent have received at least one dose. Only 38.5 percent of the total population has received three doses. Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta’s chief medical officer of health, announced some changes Wednesday to how Alberta Health will display COVID-19 data on its dashboard. It will now display a graph that differentiates between the number of people hospitalized primarily because of COVID-19 and those who were admitted for non-COVID-19 reasons but tested positive for the disease. The health care capacity tab will be removed from the dashboard because Alberta Health Services provides the same information on its website. Alberta Health will stop listing individual cases, instead classifying the number of outbreaks by supportive living, long-term care, acute care and others. The chart on vaccine outcomes will also be replaced by a summary of available evidence, as well as a list of peer-reviewed sources. Hinshaw said the results chart is being replaced because the transmissibility of the Omicron subvariant has made the data incomparable.
12 cases of monkeypox in Alberta
There are 12 confirmed cases of smallpox in Alberta, according to the health ministry. That’s an increase of four since Hinshaw’s last update on July 4. All cases are in the Edmonton and Calgary health zones. Eight cases are in the Calgary zone, four in the Edmonton zone. There are 604 total confirmed cases across Canada as of 11 a.m. MT Wednesday, according to the Public Health Service of Canada website.
