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(Gov't of Alberta livestream)
By Shane Clausing
albertans urged to get boosted

Kenney urges Albertans to get boosted as COVID-19 cases keep growing

Jan 13, 2022 | 5:15 PM

Premier Jason Kenney addressed the media on Thursday to provide the latest update on the COVID-19 situation in Alberta.

Kenney used part of his time to encourage Albertans to step up and get their third doses, but also to get vaccinated if they have not yet done so.

Currently, there are over 62,000 active cases in the province and 786 people are in hospital.

Kenney shed some light on just how effective the vaccines remain.

“Over 70 per cent of the COVID patients in our intensive care wards right now are unvaccinated, and they come from the ten per cent of the population that have not yet received a dose of vaccine,” said Premier Kenney. “Once again, that is powerful proof about the protectiveness of these vaccines.”

Kenney added in the province, over 1.2 million doses of COVID-19 booster jabs have been given to Albertans 18 and older.

The Premier says while that’s not a bad number, he would like to see more people step up and get their booster shot.

“I have to say, I would really like to see that number higher. It seemed we had faster demand and enthusiasm for the first and second doses than we’ve had for these booster shots. The data is telling us that these booster shots are very powerful protection against Omicron, so folks, please take that seriously.”

Kenney also spoke about the state of the province’s hospital situation. The last time there were over 780 people in hospital with COVID-19 was in December 2020.

Kenney says while a vast majority of Albertans have been vaccinated against COVID-19, Omicron is still spreading at an extremely rapid rate. With so many people becoming infected, Kenney expects there to be more people going to the hospital in the coming weeks.

“I’ve heard from many people who want to know how serious the Omicron variant is and the effect it’ll have on our hospitals. Given the sheer number of cases in the province, we know we will continue to see hospitalizations continue to rise in the coming weeks, particularly in non-ICU beds,” he explained.

“What we can see in the data here is what we’ve seen in many jurisdictions around the world, which is so far, a modest impact on intensive care. We still have a lot of delta COVID cases in intensive care, but a much more significant impact on our non-ICU acute care beds.”

Kenney added some good news about Omicron so far is people tend to have a shorter stay in hospital and generally less severe symptoms.

But because of the sheer number of those cases with many hospital workers having to isolate Kenney pointed out that this could pose very significant pressure on the hospital system.

“The situation we are in today is very serious and has potential to get more serious and that’s why we need the help of all Albertans,” he expressed. “Each of us has a part to play in our response to Omicron. Just like in previous waves, our individual actions combine to determine how the virus spreads and how many get sick.”

There were also some smaller announcements made on Thursday.

The province announced that pregnant women will now be included in the group that can book a PCR test if they think they have COVID-19.

They also said after January 17, Albertans will need to call 811 in order to get a free paper copy of their COVID-19 vaccination card. People can also get their card printed at a library for free as well.

by Shane Clausing