Alberta's fall COVID-19 surge is here and hospitals are feeling it

Alberta is experiencing another resurgence of COVID-19, and health experts warn it could get worse before it gets better.

That of the province respiratory viruses dashboard shows that 98 people have died as a result of the disease since the end of August. For comparison: there has been one flu death.

In the same two-month period, 1,065 Albertans were hospitalized due to COVID-19 and 54 ended up in intensive care.

“This is a stark reminder that COVID is still out there and it is still a dangerous infection,” said Craig Jenne, professor in the department of microbiology, immunology and infectious diseases at the University of Calgary.

A total of 297 hospital beds were filled with people sick with COVID-19 as of October 19. Ten people were in intensive care.

That is more than double the number in hospital two months ago.

“In recent weeks we've seen a pretty sharp increase in the number of people hospitalized with COVID,” said Dr. Lynora Saxinger, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Alberta.

According to Saxinger, many patients come straight to the hospital because of their COVID infection or because the disease has exacerbated another health problem, such as chronic lung disease.

“The majority of patients we are seeing coming in are over the age of 65… and many of them have not had recent vaccinations.”

Alberta's public hospital data tracks patients for whom COVID is considered a primary or contributing factor.

Normally, there are many more people in hospitals who have tested positive but are not included in the published figures because health officials have classified their hospitalization as not related to the SARS CoV-2 virus.

Increased positivity rates

Community transmission is increasingly difficult to track due to limited PCR testing and difficulties in accessing rapid tests in pharmacies. However, Saxinger said positivity rates (for the PCR tests being conducted) are trending upward and that is another indicator of community prevalence.

The most recent positivity rate is 13.8 percent.

“[It’s] has been moving higher over the past month, and so I think there's quite a bit of evidence that COVID has increased in September [and] October. And we're seeing some of it coming into the hospital.”

While many of the people hospitalized are older Albertans, dozens of children and teenagers have also become seriously ill.

Fifty-seven of the hospital admissions in the past two months, it has been patients under the age of 19, and a dozen of them ended up in intensive care.

“Just because you're young and healthy doesn't necessarily mean you're protected from these viruses, especially COVID,” said Jenne, who is also deputy director of the Snyder Institute for Chronic Diseases.

According to Jenne, the coronavirus resurgence is likely to continue as respiratory virus season has not really started yet.

“With cold weather approaching and more snow likely to arrive in the coming weeks, we will see more people indoors. That's a greater opportunity for viruses to spread. And I think, unfortunately, we can anticipate an increase in those numbers,” he says. said.

Meanwhile, Saxinger is concerned about the timing.

“This looks like a wave of declines, and it's happening right before the flu epidemic, which usually happens a little later and hasn't really set in yet,” she said.

“So I hope they don't overlap a lot because that actually causes a lot of problems on the hospital side.”

Saxinger is urging Albertans to get their updated COVID-19 vaccine along with their flu shot.

“I think people need to be reminded that COVID is still out there,” she said, adding that Albertans can get both vaccines at the same time.

After concerns about low vaccination rates last year — when the number of Albertans getting a COVID-19 shot dropped to 16.9 per cent — Alberta's latest vaccination rollout appears to be getting off to a slow start.

Only 3.4 per cent of all Albertans have had their newly updated COVID-19 vaccine during the first few weeks of this year's campaign.

“There really needs to be an effort to get the vaccine numbers up,” Jenne said.