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Watch this page throughout the day for updates on COVID-19 in Calgary
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With news on COVID-19 happening rapidly, we’ve created this page to bring you our latest stories and information on the outbreak in and around Calgary.
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What’s happening now
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Return to learning delayed until Jan. 10, Diploma exams cancelled, announces Education Minister LaGrange
The holiday break in Alberta will be extended an extra week as Education Minister Adriana LaGrange announced students would not return to formal learning until Jan. 10.
LaGrange made the announcement Thursday evening, saying schooling would not begin next week as originally scheduled to allow school boards additional time to plan for the return of students amid rising COVID-19 numbers. She also announced that Grade 12 diploma exams will be cancelled, and the province will provide 8.6 million rapid at-home tests and 16.5 million medical-grade masks to students and teachers across the education system.
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“This pause will give school authorities the time they need to assess and consider staffing and operational impacts and I’m confident that this additional time to plan will suffice school authorities for a successful startup,” said LaGrange.
Read more.
Education Minister announces extended student break until Jan. 10.
Education minister Adriana LaGrange announced today the province will be extending students’ winter break until Jan. 10.
“Recognizing the learning disruptions this causes for older students, we are also cancelling January diploma exams which were set to begin on Jan. 11,” she said.
LaGrange added school authorities will use the extra time to gather more information and prepare for student instructions starting Jan. 10.
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“Late next week I will provide an update with more information on next steps,” she said. “With the COVID situation rapidly evolving, so too must our response. Our plan to pause the return to school is in line with other jurisdictions in Canada.”
LaGrange said she is confident the additional time to plan will position school authorities for a successful startup.
Additionally, starting Jan. 10, LaGrange said the province will distribute 8.6 million rapid tests to schools across Alberta, along with 16.5 million medical-grade masks for staff and students.
“This will bring convenience, and is an additional measure to lower risk of in-school transmission,” she said.
Education Minister to provide update on K-12 return to school plan
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Education Minister Adriana LaGrange is set to provide an update on the provincial government’s plan to return K-12 students to school at 5:30 p.m. today.
The update comes hours after chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw said earlier today she would be taking part cabinet committee meeting to discuss the latest developments and trends with the Omicron variant and “the ongoing work to protect Albertans.”
You can view the livestream by clicking the video above.
Alberta reports around 4,000 new cases as concerns rise over province’s lack of response
Alberta reported a new pandemic high of around 4,000 cases of COVID-19 on Thursday as hospitalization rates continue to increase.
Dr. Deena Hinshaw’s planned COVID-19 update was rescheduled for Friday due to a meeting with the province’s COVID-19 cabinet committee to discuss “the latest developments and trends with the Omicron variant.” Instead, the province only released preliminary estimates of new data.
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“Decisions are pending and an update will be provided tomorrow,” said Alberta Health spokesperson Lisa Glover in an email to Postmedia.
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Alberta reports an estimated 4,000 new cases
According to preliminary reports posted to alberta.ca , the province has reported an estimated 4,000 new cases since yesterday.
Additional preliminary estimates published today include:
- A total of 371 in hospital, an increase of 22 since yesterday’s reporting.
- A total of 48 in ICU, a decrease of nine since yesterday’s reporting.
- There is an estimated 30 per cent positivity rate, up nearly 10 per cent since yesterday’s reporting.
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The 4,000 additional cases set a new pandemic record for daily cases in Alberta. The province reported 2,775 new cases yesterday, which at the time was the highest count recorded in Alberta.
Alberta’s regular COVID-19 reporting will resume on Jan. 4.
‘Dropping the ball’: Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise COVID-19 outbreak not being tracked, says AHS source
A COVID-19 outbreak that’s infected about 100 staff at the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise is being ignored by health-care authorities, says an Alberta Health Services source and hotel staff emails.
The outbreak at the majestic Rocky Mountain hotel that began last week — and has sent dozens more workers into isolation — hasn’t been publicly disclosed on the AHS website and isn’t being subject to its procedures the way it was earlier in the pandemic, said the AHS staffer.
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“We are not consulting medical officers of health anymore … regardless of what the risk is,” said the source.
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Firefighters faced more calls, longer waits in year two of COVID-19 pandemic
Calgary firefighters faced the highest call volumes in the city’s history and spent more time at those calls in 2021, says fire Chief Steve Dongworth.
The Calgary Fire Department responded to 58 per cent more overdose and poisoning calls than in 2020, 39 per cent more opioid- and fentanyl-related calls, and administered 49 per cent more naloxone in 2021. They also responded to a 57 per cent increase in psychiatric behaviour and suicide attempt-related calls when compared to 2020, and a 13 per cent increase in pandemic-related calls.
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Dongworth said the number of times crews responded to fires also increased this year.
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Omicron sidelines world juniors: Edmonton loses out on estimated $27.5 million boost
Edmonton’s local tourism and hospitality industries are expecting to take a $27.5-million hit after the world junior championships were cancelled Wednesday when multiple players tested positive for COVID-19 as the Omicron variant spreads.
At first, Explore Edmonton estimated Edmonton’s economy would get a boost of about $37 million over the course of the tournament from Dec. 26 to Jan. 5 with games in Edmonton and Red Deer. But after capacity limits were cut by half and the games were outright cancelled, the tourism agency’s events director Janelle Janis says only about $9.5 million will have been spent.
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She said it’s unfortunate to lose out on an opportunity to host this type of significant, large sporting event.
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COVID-19 pressures mean 2022 New Year’s babies won’t be announced
Alberta Health Services says the first babies born in the new year won’t be publicly announced because of hospital restrictions and pressure on the health-care system caused by COVID-19.
In a news release Thursday, AHS said it hopes to pick up the longstanding practice again in 2023.
“While we understand that this is a traditional news event, it is simply not possible to invite media into our facilities at this time, or facilitate media interviews. In addition, our labour and delivery teams are extremely busy and priority must be given to patient care,” AHS said.
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Alberta reports 2,775 new cases in Wednesday update
Here are updated COVID-19 numbers released by Alberta Health Services on Wednesday.
- There were 2,775 new COVID-19 cases reported across the province on Dec. 28.
- Eleven deaths attributed to COVID-19 were reported to AHS since the last data update on Dec. 22. The provincial total is now 3,310 since the start of the pandemic.
- There are now 7,025 cases of the Omicron variant identified in Alberta, including 4,149 in the Calgary zone.
- Hospitalizations have increased since the province’s last reporting on Dec. 22. There are 349 people in hospital with COVID-19, an increase of 31 since the previous update. There are 57 people in ICU, an increase of seven in the same time.
- There are 17,396 active COVID cases in the province.
- There are 9,293 active cases in the Calgary zone.
- There were 9,398 COVID tests conducted over the last day, with a seven-day average positivity rate of 20.5 per cent.
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Hinshaw to speak on Friday after meeting with UCP cabinet committee
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Omicron spread forces WestJet to cancel some flights, consolidate others
Those flying with WestJet should brace for changes to their travel plans.
The Calgary-based airline says the “unpredictable” spread of the Omicron variant in the company’s workforce has led to a significant increase in delays and cancellations over the past 72 hours. WestJet is now planning to consolidate 15 per cent of its flights through Jan. 31.
“Despite all contingency planning, in addition to hiring back thousands of WestJetters to safely support peak operations, we find ourselves no longer able to predictably resource our planned schedule due to Omicron impact,” interim CEO Harry Taylor said in a press release Thursday.
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As COVID-19 cases rise, Ontario study suggests Omicron is less severe
As the Omicron variant continues to cause record-breaking numbers of COVID-19 cases in several provinces, a new study out of Ontario suggests those infected with the variant are significantly less likely to face hospitalization or death compared with those who have the Delta variant.
In the study, Public Health Ontario compared Omicron cases with symptoms that emerged between Nov. 22 and Dec. 17 with Delta cases and found that, after adjusting for vaccination status and region, the risk of hospitalization or death was 54 per cent lower with Omicron.
The agency says Omicron appears to be the first dominant variant to show a decline in severity.
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In New Year’s message, governor general says Canadians can be hopeful amid pandemic
The governor general says Canadians can be hopeful as they ring in the new year, despite the ongoing crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In her first New Year’s message since becoming vice-regal in July, Mary Simon says Canadians have shown resilience, compassion and adaptability despite a difficult year.
In the message — released in English, French and Inuktitut — Simon says Canadians have inspired her to continue to work and find better ways to help communities thrive.
Read more.
B.C. delays return to class as Omicron cases soar
Return to class for students in B.C. public schools has been postponed until Jan. 10, as the Omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus accelerates aggressively across the province.
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On Wednesday, provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said that teachers would return to school on the scheduled date of Jan. 4, but most students would not be allowed back until the following week.
Henry reported a staggering number of new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, driven by the appearance late last month of the Omicron variant. While the official number of new cases reported across the province was 2,944, the true number was between three and four times that many, Henry said.
Read more.
Alberta parents anxiously await word on return-to-class plan
Advocate groups focused on keeping kids safe from COVID-19 while they are in school are calling for more supports for students as they get set to return to the classroom next week.
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Most schools in Alberta will be returning from the holidays next Tuesday or Wednesday. Premier Jason Kenney said on Tuesday that his government is looking at what other jurisdictions are doing to move forward. He also said an announcement on how schools will return to learning will be made later this week.
“It’s clearly our strong preference to maintain as much as possible in-classroom instruction. We think it’s very important for the mental and emotional well being of children and for their lifetime learning opportunities to maintain that stability,” said Kenney.
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Woman en route to Iceland isolates four hours in plane washroom after testing positive mid-flight
If only everyone were as responsible as Chicago-area preschool teacher Marisa Fotieo.
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She was on her way to a European vacation with her brother and father when she developed a sore throat on the first leg of her Dec. 20 flight and, having packed several rapid tests, went to the airplane washroom to see whether she had COVID.
The test came back positive, just days after she had received two negative tests.
Fotieo alerted a flight attendant and the two determined that the best solution to prevent spread to other passengers was for Fotieo to stay in the washroom.
“There’s 150 people on the flight and my biggest fear was giving it to them,” Fotieo told NBC News .
Read more.
Alberta ICU admissions show steady decline
J&J booster slashes Omicron hospitalizations
A booster dose of Johnson & Johnson Inc’s single-dose COVID-19 vaccine was 84 per cent effective at preventing hospitalization in South African healthcare workers who became infected as the Omicron variant spread, researchers said on Thursday.
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The real-world study, which has not been peer-reviewed, was based on a second dose of the J&J vaccine administered to 69,092 workers between Nov. 15 and Dec. 20.
Read more.
Wednesday
Alberta logs record-breaking 2,775 COVID-19 cases, 36 per cent positivity rate in Calgary
Alberta smashed COVID-19 case and test positivity records Wednesday amid an unprecedented surge in infections due to the ultra-contagious Omicron variant.
The province reported 2,775 new cases of the novel coronavirus in its first full data update since Dec. 22. It’s the highest count ever, after 2,484 cases tallied on Christmas Eve; before this week, the province had never surpassed 2,500 daily cases in any previous wave.
The new cases come from about 9,400 tests, representing a 30 per cent provincial test positivity rate which also ranks as a pandemic record. Positivity rates are highest in the Alberta Health Services Calgary zone, where 36 per cent of PCR tests processed returned positive.
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Wednesday
South Africa’s Omicron mortality data offers fresh hope as much smaller percentage of hospitalized patients die
Omicron causes just a quarter of the deaths of hospitalized patients as previous waves, the first major mortality data into the new variant suggests.
Researchers at the University of Pretoria and the National Institute of Communicable Diseases in South Africa studied patients admitted to a large hospital in the City of Tshwane, Gauteng Province, which was the original epicentre of the Omicron outbreak. They found that just 4.5 per cent of patients died during the Omicron wave compared to 21.3 per cent before the variant took hold.
The team said that if the findings were reproduced globally, there would be a “complete decoupling of case and death rates,” which would end the epidemic and usher in an endemic phase.
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Read more.
Also see: South Africa study suggests Omicron could displace Delta. Is this how the pandemic ends?
Wednesday
Ottawa quietly ‘gave up’ on COVID Alert app months ago due to low uptake
The federal government quietly “gave up” on its COVID Alert contact tracing app and stopped supporting it months ago because of its “low” uptake, Newfoundland and Labrador’s Health Minister says.
“The federal government gave up on COVID alerts app some time ago, several months before Christmas,” Dr. John Haggie told reporters Wednesday in response to a question on whether the province had abandoned use of the application.
“In actual fact, they’ve stopped supporting it and they stopped updating their dashboard. The uptake was so low that the effort to maintain those sites was unreasonable given the fact it was yielding so little,” he added.
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His revelation comes as the country grapples with massive numbers of new COVID-19 infections led by the Omicron variant, the most transmissible one to date.
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Wednesday
COVID-19 concerns cancel world junior hockey championship in Alberta
The plug has been pulled on the world junior hockey championship due to concerns with COVID-19 and the rapidly spreading Omicron variant.
On Wednesday, more positive tests forced the forfeiture of two more games, and the International Ice Hockey Federation decided to cancel the entire tournament, four days into the event.
The decision to cancel the event was made after a Russian player tested positive, forcing the rest of the team into quarantine. As a result, Russia had to forfeit its game against Slovakia scheduled for Wednesday at the Peavey Mart Centrium in Red Deer.
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Earlier in the day, Czechia had to forfeit its game against Finland at Rogers Place in Edmonton after one of its players tested positive. Due to quarantine rules, teams had to go into isolation as close contacts if a player tests positive for the virus.
The United States was the first team to forfeit a game after two players — both goaltenders — tested positive, forcing the entire team into isolation. The United States was to play Switzerland in Red Deer on Tuesday.
Read more.
Wednesday
Calgary-based Providence Therapeutics recruits for vaccine trial, secures funding for bringing jabs to developing world
A Calgary-based company with a COVID-19 vaccine currently in clinical trials is turning its attention to vaccine access for the developing world.
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Providence Therapeutics, a Canadian biotechnology company with offices in Calgary and Toronto, announced it had received nearly US$2.2 million in funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation earlier this week. The funding will go toward raw materials for their mRNA vaccine development, with the eventual goal of providing shots to low- and middle-income countries that lag far behind the rest of the world in immunization rates against COVID-19.
That’s on top of a memorandum of understanding inked with Colombia’s health ministry Dec. 17 to produce up to 100 million doses of their vaccine in the South American country each year.
Company CEO Brad Sorenson said Canada can be an exporter of vaccines to parts of the world that have faced inequitable vaccine supply, a problem he said must be resolved to stem the emergence of new variants that could prolong the pandemic.
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“As we’ve seen with the Omicron variant, until we’re able to provide access and quality vaccines everywhere in the world, you’re always going to see these variants of concern arising,” Sorenson said.
Read more.
Wednesday
Fundraising campaign aims to get at least 15,000 masks to vulnerable Albertans
The organizer of a fundraising campaign well on its way to getting 15,000 masks to vulnerable Albertans says the effort is about equity.
Albert Nobbs said Wednesday with a deadly cold snap still gripping most of the province, people experiencing houselessness, often clustering together to stay warm, can’t access good quality respirator masks to help stay safe from the rapid spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19.
“It’s simply unacceptable that this is the reality on the ground, and we need to do something about it,” Nobbs told Postmedia. As of press time, the Mask Equity Alberta project had already raised nearly $17,000 of its $25,000 goal through a GoFundMe campaign, and Nobbs said he expects the first shipment will begin going out the door by the second week of January.
He added he’s not surprised Albertans have stepped up with their support but he’s “overjoyed” and hopes they can keep the effort going beyond the original target.
Read more.
Wednesday
More than 80 cruise ships are being investigated for COVID outbreaks. So why are people still going aboard?
The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention is currently investigating more than 80 cruise ships for COVID-19 outbreaks under a new colour-coded system implemented by the cruise industry and the CDC to monitor and control outbreaks of the virus.
The cruise industry has responded to the pandemic with mitigation protocols — testing, vaccination mandates, enhanced ventilation, mask-wearing, physical distancing and other public health measures. The Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) says more than 30 countries welcomed back cruise ships this year.
But that was before the highly contagious Omicron variant arrived to rock the boat. So why are people still cruising?
“It’s probably just as safe as going to the local grocery store,” said Kim Parker, who recently sailed on the Royal Caribbean cruise with 55 infected passengers.
Read more.
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