During last week’s COVID-19 briefing, Copping warned that transmission rates appear to be rising as sewage data is on the rise in communities across the county, including Edmonton and Calgary. Koping hesitated to say whether the province was heading for a sixth wave, but said the new coronavirus was finding more opportunities to spread. Laboratory tests have found that about 80 percent of positive cases in Alberta are subtype Omicron BA.2, making it the predominant coronavirus strain in the province. As of Monday, the daily positive rate of PCR tests was 32.05 percent. The weekly moving average on Monday was 26.36 percent. The county reported 30 new deaths from COVID-19 between March 29 and April 4, including a 20-year-old man in the South Zone and a 30-year-old woman in the Edmonton Zone. A total of 4,104 Albertans have died from COVID-19. As of Monday, there were 990 people in the hospital with COVID-19, including 44 patients in intensive care, compared with 964 in the hospital with 47 in the ICU last week. There were 5,549 new cases reported between March 29 and April 4. The number of cases includes only those who tested positive for PCR, which most Alverna residents do not have access to. The government has now moved to a reporting program once a week, but this will be Hinshaw’s first press conference since March 23. It took her some time to be with her family and earlier this week she testified in court in defense of public action she took in an effort to control the spread of COVID-19 as a group of plaintiffs sought to tackle the Alberta pandemic. relevant restrictions were deemed unconstitutional. The legal dispute taking place at the Court of Queen’s Bench in Calgary is ongoing. On Monday, the Alberta Health Services announced the departure of Dr. Verna Yu as president and CEO less than a year after receiving a two-year contract extension. The health authority has not given any reason for her departure, but her leadership had become a lightning rod for criticism from members of the rural UCP parliamentary group. AHS has confirmed that Yiu is receiving a one-year salary – $ 574,000 – as a dismissal. Her contract stipulated that she was entitled to dismissal if she was fired “without just cause”.
