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Alberta’s record surge of COVID-19 infections reached new heights Saturday, as the province reported 2,433 new cases.
It’s by far the most cases logged in Alberta in a single day, a significant step up from the 2,048 and 2,007 infections reported Thursday and Friday, respectively.
The cases came from 20,457 tests, representing an 11.9 per cent positivity rate, also an all-time high.
The surge has overwhelmed Alberta’s ability to process all new cases, forcing the province to scale back variant testing efforts.
Calgary doctor urges pregnant women to get vaccinated as hospital visits increase Dr. Eliana Castillo who specializes in pregnancy and reproductive infection disease for Brodie Thomas story about vaccine hesitancy in pregnancy in Calgary on Thursday, April 29, 2021. Photo by Darren Makowichuk /DARREN MAKOWICHUK/Postmedia
FILE – The British Columbia highway welcome sign. Photo by Postmedia Archives
Albertans travelling into British Columbia won’t face checkstops amid the province’s new restrictions, B.C.’s solicitor general says.
But that doesn’t mean Alberta residents should make any non-essential trips west, said Mike Farnworth.
“There will be signage that says there should be essential travel only,” Farnworth told Postmedia Friday.
Doctor’s note not required for youth vaccination: Dr. Hinshaw
Parents and guardians can make a decision to have their child get the vaccine if they’re eligible. If parents/ guardians have questions, they can talk to their doctor, but they don’t need to get a letter before getting immunized. (4/6) Dr. Deena Hinshaw (@CMOH Alberta) May 1, 2021
CALGARY Alberta doctors will meet Friday to discuss a plan that until very recently would have seemed inconceivable: which patients will get life-saving care and which will not should hospitals and intensive care units become overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients. CTV news has learned a memo was emailed indicating that a Critical Care Triage Framework would be used if a “dire situation” were to occur where “the demand for life sustaining critical care support is greater than the available resources. Dr. Noel Gibney who is co-chair of the Edmonton zone medical staff association pandemic response committee and professor emeritus of the department of critical care medicine at the University of Alberta said this is not a good sign.
The Framework encompasses specific protocols for both adults and children to guide health care professionals in making the difficult determination of how to allocate resources to critically ill patients when there are not enough critical care resources for everyone. On Tuesday, AHS told CTV News that there was no plan to implement the triage protocol and that it had adequate capacity for hospitalization and ICU patients. We are constantly monitoring case numbers and preparing our healthcare system to ensure it can meet demand. This includes adding both ICU and acute care spaces, as well as, if necessary, redeploying staff and reducing services as we did during the first and second waves, Kerry Williamson with AHS wrote in an email.