The rate of positive COVID-19 tests for Alberta has increased for the second week in a row as more people are admitted to hospital and intensive care.
The total number of COVID-19 deaths in Alberta has increased by 20 to 4,652 since the last reporting week, provincial data shows.
The number of Albertans hospitalized with COVID-19 has risen to 559, including 23 patients in intensive care. There were 552 hospitalized, including 16 people in intensive care, a week ago.
The positive seven-day PCR test rate in the province was 22.41%, an increase of about 4.1 percentage points from a week ago.
Through these tests, 1,691 new cases of COVID-19 were identified from July 12 to 18 – 330 fewer than the previous reporting week.
However, more viruses are believed to be spreading in the community because the data does not include positive results from rapid tests and few people are eligible for a PCR test under the provincial government’s eligibility rules.
Of all Albertans, including those ineligible, 77.4 percent received two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine; 81.6 percent received at least one dose.
Only 38.5 percent of the entire population received three doses.
Dr. Deanna Hinshaw, Alberta’s chief medical officer, announced some changes Wednesday to how Alberta Health will display COVID-19 data on its dashboard.
It will now show a graph distinguishing the number of people in hospital mainly due to COVID-19 and those who were admitted for reasons other than COVID but tested positive for the disease.
The health care capacity section will be removed from the dashboard as Alberta Health Services provides the same information on its website.
Alberta Health will stop showing individual outbreaks, instead classifying the number of outbreaks by life support, long-term care, acute care and others.
The vaccine outcome chart will also be replaced by a summary of the available evidence, as well as a list of peer-reviewed sources.
Hinshaw said the results chart is being replaced because the transmissibility of the Omicron subvariant has made the data unmatched.
12 cases of monkeypox in Alberta
There are 12 confirmed cases of monkeypox in Alberta, according to the health ministry. That’s up four from Hinshaw’s last update on July 4.
All cases are in the Edmonton and Calgary health zones.
Eight cases are in the Calgary area, four are in the Edmonton area.
There were a total of 604 confirmed cases across Canada as of 11 a.m. MT Wednesday, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada website.
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