Photo: Government of Alberta

By Shane Clausing

COVID update March 30

COVID-19 related hospitalizations remain mostly stable, Grande Prairie adds 36 new cases over last week

Mar 30, 2022 | 4:03 PM

Alberta Health says over the last week Grande Prairie recorded 36 new cases of COVID-19, along with one COVID-19 related death.

In the County of Grande Prairie, there were 21 new cases confirmed since last Wednesday.

It is not known how many active COVID-19 cases there are in the city or county because of the move to weekly numbers.

The last week saw Alberta add 4,612 new cases following the completion of 19,036 tests, resulting in a test positivity rate of 24.2 per cent.

Across the province, hospitalizations over the last week grew by eight to 964, while the number of patients with COVID-19 in the ICU dell by nine to 47.

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In the North Zone, 113 people are in hospital, three are in the ICU.

Sadly, there were 30 COVID-19 related deaths reported last week, including the one in Grande Prairie, bringing the province’s COVID-19 death toll to 4,074.

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

With hospitalizations and cases remaining mostly stable, Minister of Health Jason Copping says their wastewater data collected by the province is showing we could be seeing an increase in people getting infected with COVID-19.

“From March 22-28, our daily positivity rate of PCR tests ranged from 21.7 per cent to 27.1 per cent, with an average of 24.5 per cent. This is a slight increase from the 22 per cent average in the previous seven days,” he explained.

“The wastewater surveillance data also shows signs of rising transmission. The number of sites across the province including Edmonton and Calgary are showing signs of increasing trends,” Copping said. “However, as we know, wastewater data can be highly variable, so we will continue to monitor these levels and other leading indicators in the coming days and weeks.”

Copping adds while we are potentially seeing a slight increase in the number of people becoming infected with COVID-19, it is not unexpected, as almost all restrictions have been lifted for the past seven weeks.

“There are simply more opportunities for the virus to spread, as more and more people work from the office, return to travelling, socialize in various settings, and resume their regular routines,” he said.

The province also said in Wednesday’s update the BA2 COVID-19 variant is now the dominant variant in the province. Omicron was the previous dominant variant.

At this time, the province says there is no reason to suggest the new variant is more dangerous than Omicron given hospitalizations remain stable.