AHS says local ICU has COVID patient again

By KENDALL KING, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter on December 31, 2021.

kking@medicinehatnews.com

Alberta Health Services is reporting the first COVID patient in Medicine Hat Regional Hospital’s ICU in exactly one month, an AHS representative confirmed to the News on Wednesday. The last confirmed report from AHS was Nov. 29, at which time there was one local ICU patient.

Hospitalizations in Medicine Hat have only slightly increased from two inpatients – neither in the ICU – on Dec. 21, to three – with one in the ICU – on Dec. 29, however this report comes as COVID cases increase across the province.

In six days (from Dec. 22 to Dec. 29) Medicine Hat’s COVID-19 cases jumped from 58 to 135. All nearby counties and municipal districts reported increases in their case counts, as did Lethbridge, which went from 94 to 197.

Cases in the province’s larger urban centres more than doubled over the holiday period with Calgary going from 3,837 to 7,708 and Edmonton going from 1,705 to 4,496. Province-wide more than 17,000 active cases of COVID-19 had been reported as of Wednesday. An estimated Thursday update suggested active cases has reached 21,000.

“We must be taking proactive measures every day, in every aspect of our lives,” Alberta’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Deena Hinshaw said in a Tuesday press conference. “We should be assuming there is someone with Omicron – infectious – in any public place we might be going into right now.”

Local doctor, Paul Parks, who is the president of the section of emergency medicine at AMA, encourages Albertans and Hatters to continue upholding public health measures, such as masking, physical distancing and frequent sanitization.

“I would just caution people that the pandemic’s not over,” Parks told the News. “We don’t know what this Omicron – this next variant – what it’s going to look like. We are kind of concerned and we are vigilant right now, so I would say, looking forward, Medicine Hat and our community, we should be doing the simple things … That’s going to be the key for us.”

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