Three more active cases in Grande Prairie; Dr. Hinshaw discuss schools and face masks

There are now 45 people in hospital, the same as Tuesday’s update. There are seven people in an ICU, down three from yesterday.

Updated case numbers among Peace Region municipalities are as follows:

City of Grande Prairie: 93 cases (14 active, 77 recovered, two deaths)
County of Grande Prairie: 46 cases (Three active, 43 recovered)
M.D. of Greenview: 12 cases (11 recovered, one death)
Birch Hills County: Three cases (All recovered)
M.D. of Spirit River: Nine cases (Six active, three recovered)
M.D. of Smoky River: 74 cases (One active, 63 recovered, ten deaths)
Big Lakes County: 48 cases (43 recovered, five deaths)
M.D. of Lesser Slave River: Seven cases (Two active, five recovered)
M.D. of Peace: 16 cases (three active, 13 recovered)
M.D. of Fairview: 16 cases (Six active, 10 recovered)
Clear Hills County: 78 cases (20 active, 57 recovered, one death)
Northern Sunrise County: Six cases (All recovered)
County of Northern Lights: 28 cases (Nine active, 19 recovered)
Saddle Hills County: One case (One active, 0 recovered)
Mackenzie County: 347 cases (65 active, 272 recovered, 10 deaths)

Alberta’s chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw spoke about concerns about schools during her update Wednesday.

She says Alberta Health Services has identified 16 people at 16 different schools across Alberta that were at those schools while infectious. Locations were not included in the announcement. She adds there is only a risk for students and staff when there is an infectious person present, they may have come in contact with.

“The best way to assess the safety of schools is to track and monitor the number of cases and schools where an infectious case was present, as well as schools where transmission has happened on that site. Other numbers are not relevant to school transmission risk and simply cause confusion and anxiety.”

Dr. Hinshaw says focusing on the numbers related to schools above, rather than higher numbers being reported at other sites, better helps parents understand the risk of exposure for their kids.

She says reporting cases where a teacher or student contracted COVID-19 outside of school and were never in their school, does not help understand the risk and it is better to track and monitor schools where infectious cases were present.

Hinshaw also mentioned a new online map showing where there may be a risk has been unveiled. It will list every school where there have been two or more cases in a school setting in a 14-day period where COVID-19 was transmitted or acquired in a new school.

However, she said none of the 16 schools mentioned above meet that threshold. Dr. Hinshaw adds officials are looking at ways to report single cases where the infected person was in their school.

Dr. Hinshaw was also asked her thoughts on anti-mask protests.

She acknowledges people are concerned about face coverings for many reasons but says her recommendations on face coverings for schools comes from evidence gathered around the world.

“While we’ve had about six months (with COVID-19) we haven’t had that time to set up randomized, controlled trials in a community to document where an intervention of face coverings is used, where it’s not used, and to look at the difference.”

“What we do is from experimental evidence looking at how face masks block the expulsion of droplets and infectious particles, and also looking at observational studies that have looked at the impact of face masks in different settings, and looking at the review of evidence of potential harm of face mask-wearing there’s very little evidence to demonstrate that there are harms to wearing face masks.”

Dr. Hinshaw adds that there is more evidence showing the benefits of masks.

“If it’s a medical face mask that has been standardized to provide the filtration that’s appropriate, then that face mask can both protect the person wearing it as well as those around them because it prevents particles from coming in while they are breathing in as well as catching particles while they are breathing out. When you use non-medical face masks, whether that’s cloth face coverings or other grades of face mask, it doesn’t have the same protection for those wearing it.”

Dr. Hinshaw says non-medical face masks are most important for wearers who want to protect people around them, as they trap particles. She adds it is important to look at the number of layers in a cloth mask and that people are more protected when masks are worn when it is not possible to keep two metres away from other people.

by Curtis Galbraith