WESTLOCK — One more person has tested positive for COVID-19 in the Westlock area since Friday.
Currently, there are 15 active cases and 51 people have recovered for a total of 66 cases recorded since the start of the pandemic. No deaths have been reported. The area covers Westlock County, the Town of Westlock and the Village of Clyde.
An outbreak is still active at the Westlock Continuing Care Centre, where four patients and one staff member tested positive and remained in isolation as of Friday.
Whereas the spread seems to have slowed down in Westlock, this is not the case for the province. In the last 24 hours, 1,549 new cases were identified and 19,500 tests were performed for an eight per cent positivity rate.
On Sunday, Alberta recorded 1,584 new cases, and broke consecutive records, including most cases recorded in a province in Canada. That day, Ontario reported 1,534 and Quebec 1,154.
Thirteen per cent (or 304) of schools in Alberta have active COVID-19 alerts, including 64 that are on the watch list with five or more cases. Two of those are in the Westlock area: St. Mary School has an outbreak (two to four cases) and R.F. Staples continues to be on the watch list.
Hospitalizations sit at 328, with 62 in ICU. Alberta’s chief medical officer Dr. Deena Hinshaw announced that Alberta Health Services is prepared to increase the number of beds in COVID-19 ICU units from 70, but this will come at the cost of other health services.
Units best suited for treating COVID patients could be cardiac units, surgery recovery ones, or any suitable hospital space that can accommodate ventilators.
Five more people have died since yesterday; the death toll in Alberta rose to 476.
Contact tracing behind
Starting today, positive cases will be notified via text message rather than phone calls.
Hinshaw announced that the increase in cases has led to a backlog of COVID-19 positive results that have not been investigated. All cases have been notified of their positive results.
Starting tomorrow, if 10 days have passed since a positive test result, AHS will no longer investigate the case. Tracers will also be working backwards with the investigations, starting with the most recent positive cases to “(prioritize) the cases which will have the greatest benefit in reducing further transmission.”
Guidance for isolation periods for the cases that will go uninvestigated will come via text message. People are asked to notify their close contacts if they test positive.
“I am sorry that this change will leave a group of people without the opportunity to have a conversation with AHS to understand where they acquired the infection and how to better prevent onward spread, but we must focus on going forward and use our contact tracers where they have the greatest impact.”
The backlog could also affect cases linked to schools in the last two weeks, but children remain part of the priority call in the most recent cases, Hinshaw said.
Health care or continuing care workers remain unaffected. Their samples have priority and go through a separate mechanism.
New measures
Hinshaw will be meeting with the Priorities Implementation Cabinet Committee later today to recommend new measures. They’ll be announced tomorrow morning.
“It’s clear that we’ve reached a precarious point in Alberta,” Hinshaw said.
“To put it as plainly as possible, this is like a snowball rolling down a hill growing bigger and faster and it will continue unless we implement strong measures to stop. We must take action. Waiting any longer will impact our ability to care for Albertans in the weeks and months ahead.
“As chief medical officer of health, my role is to provide advice to government on how to protect the health of Albertans.”
She didn’t offer any details on what those measures might look like, but said “there are a variety of options” and it’s up to government to choose.
Hinshaw said vaccines and treatments offer “extremely promising news” and they may be available sometime in 2021.
