Photo: Government of Alberta

By Shane Clausing

COVID update

Grande Prairie COVID-19 cases remain stable, hospitalizations continue to drop

Mar 23, 2022 | 5:02 PM

Alberta Health says over the last week Grande Prairie recorded 23 new cases of COVID-19 since last Wednesday.

In the County of Grande Prairie, there were 20 new cases confirmed over the last week.

March 23 was the first Wednesday where the province moved to only updating COVID-19 data weekly. As a result of the move to weekly numbers, local numbers are now not reported by the province.

Across the province, hospitalizations over the last week fell by 10 to 956, while the number of patients with COVID-19 in the ICU dell by six to 56.

Sadly, there were 19 COVID-19 related deaths reported last week, bringing the province’s COVID-19 death toll to 4,044.

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Full details and COVID-19 numbers can be found on the province’s website.

With hospitalizations continuing to go down slowly, Minister of Health for Alberta Jason Copping says this is very encouraging news.

With numbers going down, this means the province has been able to start clearing the surgical backlog created from the pandemic.

“The system is nearly back to normal surgical volumes. Approximately 96 per cent of average weekly volumes in pre-pandemic years.”

“Our surgical waitlist is stable at around 76,350 this week compared to 78,400 at the beginning of last month. For context, the waitlist was 68,000 in February of 2020 before the pandemic,” he said.

“At its peak, after the fourth wave, it was 81,600. The current list is too long and we need to get it down and we’re working on doing that.”

Copping mentioned this is positive considering the health system has had to overcome a global health crisis. He compares the last two years of COVID-19 on our healthcare system to five consecutive winters when hospitalizations usually see an uptick.

Copping adds their goal is to get that list down even more than it already is.

“The goal is simple, to get the waitlist down and keep it down so we can give every Albertan the scheduled surgery they need within a clinically acceptable time.”

Chief medical officer of health for the province Dr. Deena Hinshaw also spoke at the press conference on Wednesday.

She reminded Albertans that it is important to stay home if you’re feeling sick.

“Another critical step we all need to take is to stay home when we have symptoms. With that, I would like to remind Albertans there are a substantial supply of free rapid tests available at pharmacies across the province,” she explained.

“Pick up several boxes to have on hand in case someone is feeling sick. It’s also important to stay home and away from others even if both tests are negative.