ALBERTA— A number of COVID-19 outbreaks in Alberta have created a hotspot of the virus in the Calgary Zone.
Alberta’s Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw reported that 149 new cases of COVID-19 have been identified in the province as of Monday (April 20). There are a total of 2,908 reported cases in Alberta, 1,230 of which have recovered.
Of these cases, 149 people have been hospitalized and 40 are in intensive care units. A total of 59 people have died of COVID-19.
There have been 30 cases of the virus reported in Rocky View County and 15 cases reported in the Cochrane-Springbank region.
The Calgary Zone accounts for 71 per cent of reported COVID-19 cases in the province.
Of these cases, more than 360 cases have been identified at an outbreak at the Cargill meat processing plant in High River. Hinshaw cautioned that there has been spread in the community from these workers.
As of now 481 cases have been linked to the meat processing plant outbreak.
“Many of the cases identified in the Calgary Zone over the weekend were linked to this broader outbreak,” Hinshaw said, adding that a dedicated team is working to control the Cargill outbreak.
This specialized team will pay particular attention to households where the resources or space needed for self-isolation may not be available.
The facility will be shuttering its door temporarily in response to the outbreak.
Hinshaw noted that many of the cases that have been identified in relation to the Cargill outbreak were exposed up to two weeks prior to when control measures were put in place.
“We will continue to see new cases linked to this outbreak in the coming days,” Hinshaw said.
Outbreak control measures are also in place at JBS Foods Canada in Brooks where 67 cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed and the Kearl Lake oilsands work camp north of Fort McMurray where 12 cases have been identified. The province continues to confirm COVID-19 numbers for the work camp outbreak, Hinshaw said.
She added that an additional case has been confirmed at the Foothills Hospital bringing the total number of cases in the facility to nine.
Hinshaw said the province will begin posting a list of facilities and areas experiencing COVID-19 outbreak Tuesday (April 21). The province will be using a phased approach and will begin by posting a list of all outbreaks at continuing-care and acute care facilities. Other settings will be included in the coming weeks.
As of Monday, the province has tested more than 100,000 Albertans for the virus, Hinshaw said.
Hinshaw said testing access in the province has been expanded to include anyone displaying symptoms of the virus, cough, runny nose, sore throat, fever and shortness of breath, all asymptomatic staff and residents at outbreaks in continuing care facilities and testing is being offered to asymptomatic individuals in other outbreak sites to enhance control measures.
She added that it is “encouraging” that COVID-19 related hospitalizations and intensive care admittance has been lower than the Alberta Health Services models predicted.
Hinshaw noted that these numbers are referred to as a “lagging indicator” because they indicate the spread of the virus that would have occurred three weeks before a patient is admitted to the hospital.
“Albertans should feel proud of the collective work that we’ve done to prevent spread,” Hinshaw said. “We need to be a bit cautious especially because we do have several outbreaks that are happening right now where we see some significant case numbers— It’s possible in areas where we are having those outbreaks we could see increased demand for hospitalization.”
