Those new restrictions take effect Friday. Hinshaw said even the current hospital numbers represent a sobering strain on health capacity.Įarlier this week, Premier Jason Kenney announced new rules to reduce the potential of super-spreader events. Those numbers are down slightly from a day earlier and represent a fraction of the cases in hospital in September, which threatened to buckle the health system. There were 318 people in hospital with the illness, including 64 in intensive care. There were 1,625 new COVID-19 cases reported Thursday, for a total active case count of 8,359. Hinshaw said Omicron is now the dominant strain in the province and cases are doubling every two to three days. “In light of the risk posed by the Omicron variant, we need to adjust the policy to maximize capacity and avoid losing any staff if we can while still keeping patients safe,” Health Minister Jason Copping said in a release. They will have to pay for the testing and the policy will be reviewed at the end of March. If it is negative a second time, they should stay in isolation until the symptoms disappear. She said if someone has COVID-19 symptoms, but is negative on the rapid test, that person should isolate for 24 to 48 hours then test again. “Please isolate and notify your close contacts.” “If you test positive and have symptoms, consider that as confirmation that you have COVID-19,” said Hinshaw. Hinshaw said people who have rapid test kits and COVID-19 symptoms should use those kits, not go for a PCR test. The province has distributed 250,000 rapid test kits, each with five tests, over the last week through health sites and pharmacies, and is ordering up to 10 million more tests privately that are expected to be available in the new year. “With cases growing exponentially we must begin to conserve testing capacity, reserving testing capacity for higher-risk groups,” Hinshaw said Thursday.
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Deena Hinshaw, the province’s chief medical officer of health, is urging Albertans with COVID-19 symptoms to rely on rapid antigen tests, not the more accurate PCR tests, in order to free up PCR resources for those in higher-priority settings, such as continuing care, according to CP. Alberta is adjusting its COVID-19 testing rules to cope with the rise in cases driven by the highly transmissible Omicron variant, The Canadian Press reports.ĭr. Web links to longer stories if available.ħ:35 p.m. This file will be updated throughout the day. The latest coronavirus news from Canada and around the world Thursday.
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