Air quality advisories issued in 5 provinces, 1 territory
Air quality advisories are in effect across Western Canada as smoky conditions plague some areas, according to the latest forecasts. Here's where.
The R-value has climbed to peak COVID-19 levels in Alberta, even as daily case numbers remain fairly low, prompting the question: What constitutes a fourth wave of the pandemic in a country that has enough vaccines to inoculate everyone?
The R-value of COVID-19, or the “effective reproduction number,” is a way of measuring an infectious disease’s capacity to spread. It represents the number of people who will become infected by one infected person.
Alberta’s value was logged around 1.48 over the weekend according to provincial data, whereas at the peak of the third wave of the pandemic in the province when daily cases were around 1,500, the R-value fluctuated around 1.15.
“If your ‘R’ is greater than one, you're obviously growing. If the ‘R’ is less than one, you have a shrinking epidemic,” explained infectious disease expert Dr. Isaac Bogoch in a telephone interview with CTVNews.ca Wednesday. “A growing epidemic’s values are greater than one – a shrinking epidemic’s value are less than one.”
Alberta Health reported 194 new COVID-19 cases Wednesday, making the active case count stand at 1,334, the highest it has been in weeks. Eighty-four people are getting treated for COVID-19 in the hospital including 18 that were admitted to the ICU.
On Wednesday, in her first COVID-19 update in nearly a month, chief medical officer of health for Alberta Dr. Deena Hinshaw said “cases have risen recently, almost entirely in those who have not been fully vaccinated, as we expected would likely happen, as people come in close contact with each other again… I am pleased that overall hospitalizations continue to decline. And we will keep watching these closely.”
Hinshaw also reported that since July 1, people who were not fully immunized made up 95 per cent of all cases of COVID-19 in the province, 94 per cent of all those who have needed hospital care for COVID-19, and 95 per cent of all COVID-19 deaths.
Adjunct professor at the School of Public Health at the University of Alberta and former chief medical officer of health for the province Dr. James Talbot says the numbers are cause for concern.
“The numbers are going in the wrong direction,” Talbot said in an interview with CTV National News. “We were down to 30 to 50 cases a day…[it’s] a significant increase, and as predicted the Delta variant is now dominant.”
Talbot said the highly transmissible variant is “causing 90 per cent of the cases” and could cause an “exponential growth” of daily cases especially amongst those who are unvaccinated.
“It’s bad news for the province,” he said, adding that in light of Alberta lifting most public health restrictions on July 1, “the absence of any kind of control measures in place except immunisation, what you're left with is 25 per cent of people over the age of 12 who can serve as fuel for this fire - and then you have all the kids under 12 who, of course, haven't been immunised, who will also be transmitting the virus.”
In an emailed statement on Wednesday, the Alberta provincial government stated that “nearly 75.6 per cent of eligible Albertans have now received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, and 64.3 per cent are fully immunized.”
“Vaccines dramatically reduce the risk of severe outcomes and the risk of infection. While COVID-19 cases may rise in the coming months, a surge of hospitalizations and other severe outcomes is much less likely thanks to vaccines,” the statement continues.
Canada now has enough COVID-19 vaccines to fully inoculate every eligible person over the age of 12, with more than 66 million doses received as of Tuesday, but despite the glut of vaccines and Alberta’s vaccination rate, Talbot said the province’s vaccine number announcement leave out a crucial piece of context.
“The key thing here is that 25 per cent are unimmunised; they have no protection,” he said, adding that that number has not budged in six weeks. “In the past, they were protected by the fact that there were people who were wearing masks, social distancing, et cetera, that they have no protection now.”
Alberta has the second-lowest vaccination rate in the country after Saskatchewan.
Talbot said with the Delta variant, unvaccinated Albertans and a rising R-value, the exponential growth of cases or “doubling time” could conservatively be between “a week to two weeks.”
“Take 10 days. So if we're at 100 [cases]… 10 days from now, 200, 10 days after that, 400, 10 days after that… by the end of the month, 800 cases per day,” he said.
“I mean, we were hoping to really get back to normal for schools and workplaces in September, and this is potentially going to put that in jeopardy,” Talbot said.
But where Talbot sees a potential fourth wave, Bogoch said it’s important to “change the narrative.”
“You know, I know everyone's trying to focus on Alberta, but I think the important point here is that it's not just Alberta, it’s Canada,” he said. “As you open up, which everybody is doing, to some extent, you're going to see a rise in cases -- we know that's going to happen.”
Bogoch said “it should come as no surprise” that if you give a virus like COVID-19 an “opportunity to be transmitted, it will be transmitted.”
B.C., which reported 185 new cases of COVID-19 Wednesday, has made masks mandatory again in indoor public places as parts of the interior see a spike in cases.
Ontario reported 158 new COVID-19 cases, as the seven-day rolling average of daily COVID-19 cases stands around at 160, up from 155 the previous week.
“It’s not just Alberta,” Bogoch said. “It's actually a bigger issue. And the question is to what extent will we be able to mitigate that rise in cases? To what extent will we be able to keep the pressure off of our health care system amongst amidst an expected rise in cases?”
“Cases are going to go up. We know that's going to happen. Alberta is just the first,” he said.
Bogoch also pointed out after well over a year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the country knows “how to keep this under control.”
“We can vaccinate, we can create safer indoor spaces like schools, places of work, restaurants, et cetera, so it's not like we don't know how,” he said, adding that “now, a lot of the decisions are really political decisions, not just medical and scientific and public health.”
Alberta announced Wednesday it will lift much of its remaining COVID-19 restrictions in the coming days, despite the rise in cases – for example, on Aug. 16, people who test positive for COVID-19 will not be mandated to quarantine anymore, but the province will recommend it.
“You know, the pandemic isn't over, we're doing really well and this is a great opportunity to strike while the iron is hot,” Bogoch said. “We've got enough vaccines to vaccinate every eligible Canadian, we've got health-care systems that are not overwhelmed at the moment, we've got a population that's quite willing to be vaccinated, and we've got very low rates of community transmission at the moment. So this is this is an opportune time to really get everything in order to prepare for an expected rise in cases that we're going to see later in the summer, probably in the fall.
“We can't ignore that we're way better off now than we were weeks and weeks and months ago.”
-----
With files from CTV National News' Heather Butts
Air quality advisories are in effect across Western Canada as smoky conditions plague some areas, according to the latest forecasts. Here's where.
Many foods fall under the category of ultraprocessed foods, depending on their exact ingredients. This type of food has been studied a lot lately, and the results aren’t great.
Hollywood actor Steve Buscemi has been treated for injuries after being punched in the face while walking in New York City.
Four years on, the controversy over whether airlines owed refunds to passengers after cancelling hundreds of thousands of flights during the pandemic continues to simmer, aggravated by a sluggish, opaque complaints process.
For her latest column on CTVNews.ca, royal commentator Afua Hagan writes about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's recent visit to Nigeria, calling it a 'deeply meaningful campaign' that was about aligning their ongoing efforts to foster mental-health awareness and promoting the Invictus Games.
As a pair of wildfires burn near Flin Flon and The Pas, a number of Manitobans are being told to evacuate their homes.
Ontario will need 33,200 more nurses and 50,853 more personal support workers by 2032, the government projects — figures it tried to keep secret but were obtained by The Canadian Press.
A tiny contingent of Duke University graduates opposed pro-Israel comedian Jerry Seinfeld speaking at their commencement in North Carolina Sunday, with about 30 of the 7,000 students leaving their seats and chanting "free Palestine" amid a mix of boos and cheers.
Whether you were lucky to nab tickets to one of Taylor Swift's six sold-out Toronto concerts in November or not, a new 'fan experience' hopes to get you into the party spirit.
Two daughters and a mother were reunited online 40 years later thanks to a DNA kit and a Zoom connection despite living on three separate continents and speaking different languages.
Mother's Day can be a difficult occasion for those who have lost or are estranged from their mom.
YES Theatre Young Company opened its acclaimed kids’ show, One Small Step, at Sudbury Theatre Centre on Saturday.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
The threat of zebra mussels has prompted the federal government to temporarily ban watercraft from a Manitoba lake popular with tourists.
A small Ajax dessert shop that recently received a glowing review from celebrity food critic Keith Lee is being forced to move after a zoning complaint was made following the social media influencer’s visit last month.
The Canada Science and Technology Museum is inviting visitors to explore their poop. A new exhibition opens at the Ottawa museum on Friday called, 'Oh Crap! Rethinking human waste.'