Premier Jason Kenney will be joined by Health Minister Jason Copping to provide an update on Alberta’s health system and the COVID-19 situation Thursday afternoon.
Dr. Verna Yiu, CEO of Alberta Health Services, and Tim Grant, public service commissioner, are also set to take part in the news conference.
Grant led the government’s response to the 2011 Slave Lake wildfire. He served in the Canadian Forces for 31 years, reaching the rank of Major General.
The news conference is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. and will be streamed live in this article post.
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Alberta records 34 new COVID-19 deaths, ICU admissions climb as Kenney discusses crisis with Trudeau
Alberta’s health system continues to struggle on the pressures of the fourth wave of the pandemic.
Surgeries have been postponed, staff redeployed and AHS staff are finding additional ICU space wherever possible.
As of about noon on Thursday, there were 373 ICU beds in Alberta, AHS spokesperson Kerry Williamson told Global News. That includes 200 additional surge spaces that have been added — a 115 per cent increase over AHS’ baseline of 173.
“AHS has opened 22 additional ICU surge spaces in the past seven days,” Williamson said.
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‘Extraordinary measures’ needed to fight COVID-19 in Alberta, Saskatchewan: CMA
As of Thursday, there were 309 patients in ICU, “the vast majority of whom are COVID positive,” he said.
“The number of patients in ICU has increased by six per cent in the past seven days.”
Provincially, ICU capacity (including additional surge beds) is currently at 83 per cent. Without the additional surge spaces, provincial ICU capacity would be at 179 per cent, AHS said.
The Calgary zone is at 79 per cent capacity (include 71 surge spaces), Edmonton zone is at 86 per cent capacity (including 86 additional surge spaces), and North zone is operating at 100 per cent capacity.
READ MORE: Alberta adds COVID-19 measures, vaccine passport in effort to prevent health-care system’s collapse
In response to rising case numbers and COVID-19 ICU admissions that were pushing the health system to the brink, Kenney announced Sept. 15 public health measures that would go into effect Sept. 16 as well as the vaccine passport — known in Alberta as the restrictions exemption program — which would take effect at eligible businesses and facilities on Sept. 20.
Kenney said Tuesday more time is needed to measure the impact of the latest rule changes.
“We will take additional measures if we deem them necessary.”
According to Sept. 29 data from the federal government, Canada had 44,358 active cases of COVID-19 as of Wednesday. Of those, 20,306 were in Alberta – far more than any other province. The next highest active case number was in B.C., with 6,563 cases.
https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/diseases/2019-novel-coronavirus-infection.html#a1 current active covid-19 cases as of Sept. 29, 2021.