Alberta reported 3,837 new cases of COVID-19 Wednesday.
The province had a 38 per cent test positivity rate over the past 24 hours and there are 67,534 active cases of the virus in Alberta.
In a series of tweets on Wednesday, Alberta chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw asked Albertans to remain vigilant in the fight against the COVID-19 Omicron variant.
“The current variant is highly infectious and some may even wonder if getting it is inevitable. I would like to remind people that the reason Omicron appears to be milder is largely because of vaccines,” Hinshaw tweeted.
“Vaccines dramatically reduce the risk of severe outcomes, even as we have seen some waning of protection against infection. But even with vaccines, getting sick with COVID is not a common cold.
“You cannot predict how far your infection will spread through others through an ongoing chain of transmission, or who it will reach. Unfortunately, at some point, it will likely reach someone for whom COVID-19 is not a mild illness.”
COVID-19 hospitalizations rose slightly over the past 24 hours, with 1,101 people in hospital, including 108 in intensive care. That’s 12 new patients in the hospital, including four in the ICU.
Hinshaw added that over the past seven days, 55.1 per cent of new non-ICU admissions are due to COVID and 44.9 per cent are cases where infection was not determined to be a cause of admission, or not possible to determine. In the ICU, 69.8 per cent of new admissions were due to COVID and 30.2 per cent were incidental infections or unclear.
There were also six new deaths due to the implications of COVID-19 reported, bringing Alberta’s death toll to 3,413.
The Central zone sits at 4,121 active cases of the virus, with 95 people in hospital, including 10 in the ICU.
Red Deer has the fifth most active COVID-19 cases in the province, with 1,299. Only Calgary, Edmonton, Strathcona County and Lethbridge have more.
The city had 11,515 total cases, with 10,132 total cases and 84 deaths due to the implications of COVID-19.
The City of Wetaskiwin had 259 active cases, Red Deer County had 274, the City of Lacombe had 130, Mountain View County had 125, Sylvan Lake had 115, Lacombe County had 123, Clearwater County had 104, Olds had 103 and Stettler County had 47 active cases.
The City of Camrose had 203, Kneehill County had 44, Camrose County has 22 and Drumheller had 74.
On the local geographic area setting on the provincial government’s geospatial mapping, Wetaskiwin County, including Maskwacis, had 706 active cases, while Ponoka, including East Ponoka County, had 197 and Rimbey, including West Ponoka County and part of Lacombe County, had 37.
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