COVID-19 in Alberta: Deaths increase by 27 over last 2 days

Parents waiting on COVID-19 vaccine plan Alberta is now the only province without a public plan to vaccinate young children against COVID-19. Nicole Lampa reports.

Alberta's COVID-19 death count grew by 27 on Wednesday, while the number of coronavirus-infected patients in hospital continued to decline.

The deaths were spread across the last week and were of individuals ranging in age from in their 60s to more than 80 years old. Ten of the deaths were of residents of the Edmonton health zone.

The deaths bring the total number of COVID-19 deaths in Alberta since the start of the pandemic up to 3,939.

Wednesday’s data report included data from Monday and Tuesday after Alberta Health said technical issues limited it to a lmited, estimated update on Tuesday.

The number of COVID-19 hospitalizations continues to trend downwards with 1,231 COVID-19 patients in hospital, including 84 in intensive care units.

Tuesday’s estimated total of 1,225 in hospital and 80 in intensive care units was revised Wednesday to 1,267 and 83 in ICU.

There are now just over 8,000 known active cases in Alberta after 747 new cases were confirmed over the last 48 hours. Limits to testing capacity and eligibility mean the actual numbers of new and active cases are many times higher.

Alberta moved to Step 2 of its reopening plan on Tuesday with the removal of gathering and capacity limits as well as masking rules in most settings.

Masks must still be worn on public transit, continuing and acute care settings as well as within Edmonton as the city’s own mask bylaw remains in effect.

Unvaccinated Albertans are outnumbered nearly four-to-one by those who have had at least a first shot of vaccine, but remain many times more likely to experience a severe outcome due to COVID-19 including hospitalization or death.

Alberta has now administered close to 8.5 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine, with 80.9 per cent of the population having had at least one dose and 75.9 per cent having had two shots.

The next data update is scheduled for Thursday.