COCHRANE— Marking a grim milestone, the Province of Alberta has reported 1,002 COVID-19 deaths to date.
Alberta's Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Hinshaw provided an update on the number of COVID-19 cases identified in the province over the holidays on Monday (Dec. 28).
On Dec. 23, 1,007 new COVID-19 cases were identified and 30 deaths were reported. On Dec. 24, 1,191 new cases of COVID-19 were identified and 18 deaths were reported. On Dec. 25, 914 new cases of COVID-19 were identified and 17 deaths were reported. On Dec. 26, 459 new cases of COVID-19 were identified and 27 deaths were reported.
On Dec. 27, 917 new cases of COVID-19 were identified after 9,633 tests were completed. An additional 20 deaths were also recorded.
The provincial positivity rate has ranged from 6.4 per cent to 9.6 per cent over the holidays.
The Town of Cochrane had a reported 53 active COVID-19 cases as of Sunday (Dec. 27). To date there have been 238 cases of the virus identified— 184 people have recovered and one death has been reported.
Currently, there are 878 people who have been hospitalized due to the virus in Alberta, including 148 in intensive care units.
To date, 1,002 have died due to COVID-19 in Alberta.
“This is a difficult update and knowing that each one of those individuals is leaving behind family, friends and coworkers, those in their community, who will be mourning their loss,” Hinshaw said. “We know that it does take several weeks before the trend we’re seeing in cases stabilizing and comes down, before we start to see that being reflected in our hospital and ICU numbers as well as our deaths.”
The COVID-related deaths of 1,002 in the province serve as a reminder of why all Albertans need to play a part in bringing these numbers down, Hinshaw said. She explained deaths, hospitalizations and intensive care admissions are considered “lagging numbers” experiencing a delay of about one to two weeks in comparison to case numbers and will take longer to experience a decline.
During the press conference, Hinshaw reported a single case of the COVID-19 virus variant first identified in the UK that is believed to be more contagious has been reported in Alberta. The case involves an individual who recently arrived in Alberta from the UK. At this time there is no evidence there has been further spread of the virus from the lone case.
Hinshaw cautioned that over the holidays it is likely fewer people will want to go to a testing centre or may delay testing to a later date, resulting in a lower number of tests being completed and lower numbers of positive cases. She added she expects the measures introduced in early December have also contributed to the lower active cases numbers.
“It will be difficult to know exactly how all of these different pieces are contributing to our lower numbers until we start to see over this week whether our testing numbers go up, whether our hospitalization numbers go down,” Hinshaw said. “Ultimately it really does depend on all of our actions together, and we are, unfortunately not out of the woods yet.”
Currently, there are 15,587 active cases of COVID-19 in Alberta.
The next in-person update on COVID-19 will be provided on Tuesday (Jan. 5).
