Photo: Government of Alberta

By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

alberta ICU situation dire

Alberta ICU situation continues to be dire, doctors Hinshaw and Yiu say

Sep 23, 2021 | 7:24 PM

Alberta continues to face unprecedented challenges to its health system in the fourth wave of COVID-19, driven by unvaccinated people.

“100 per cent of new ICU admissions were in Albertans who did not have any vaccine protection,” said chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw.

She said Albertans who are not fully vaccinated are about 15-times more likely than those with vaccine protection to be hospitalized with COVID-19 and about 40-time more likely to be admitted to the ICU. About 77 per cent of Albertans in hospital and 92 per cent of those in ICU have not been fully vaccinated.

An average of 23 people per day have been admitted to ICU in the past five days, said Alberta Health Services president and CEO Dr. Verna Yiu.

“It’s tragic that we are only able to keep pace with these sort of numbers because in part some of our ICU patients have passed away,” she said.

Hinshaw also addressed persistent questions and rumours on social media that vaccines are not working against the delta variant.

“This is categorically untrue,” said Hinshaw, adding that in Alberta vaccines have proven to be 85 per cent effective against the delta variant after two doses.

She said no vaccine is 100 per cent effective and a very small percentage of fully vaccinated people could still get COVID if exposed to the disease.

Hinshaw added that as has been the case this week, the majority of the new deaths were people who were not vaccinated at all. A small number were people who were double vaccinated with pre-existing health conditions.

Added Yiu: “Every day, we see the numbers. There are people behind the numbers. They are spouses and partners, grandparents, uncles and aunts, sons and daughters, peoples’ best friends and loved ones. The other people I think of regularly are those Albertans who’ve been impacted by our decision to postpone surgeries. Having your surgery delayed can be extremely traumatizing, particularly if you’ve been waiting a long time, and especially if your surgery is potentially life-changing.”

Sarah Hoffman, NDP Critic for Education, said following Thursday’s live update that contact tracing in schools must be restored.

“Tracing in schools has been done in previous waves and the UCP government needs to do whatever it takes to reimplement it now,” she said. “Only yesterday, British Columbia returned to a policy of tracing cases in schools. Alberta must follow suit and undertake every possible effort to stop the spread of this preventable disease in children.”