Town of Drayton Valley

4 hours ago

COVID-19 UPDATE | OCTOBER 20th, 2020

Today Dr. Deena Hinshaw opened her report by reminding Albertans that the flu shot is now available and thanked those who have already received their influenza immunization. By getting your flu shot you help protect yourself from the virus and also help prevent spreading influenza to those around you.

There are currently 116 Albertans hospitalized with COVID-19 with 16 in the ICU. Dr. Hinshaw stated that we are currently at a compounded daily COVID hospitalization rise of 3.1% across the province in the last two weeks, which is getting close to the 5% trigger threshold. This rise appears to be driven by community case counts and several hospital outbreaks. In the last 24 hours, 323 new cases were identified out of more than 13,000 tests. The provincial positivity rate is 2.5%.

At this time there are active alerts at approximately 8% of schools in Alberta, with 512 cases in these schools. 96 schools are on outbreak, with 26 on the ‘watch’ list.

Dr. Hinshaw is still concerned about the Edmonton zone, which currently has about 50% of active cases in the province. It has been about two weeks since the voluntary public health measures were put in place in Edmonton. Dr. Hinshaw reminded Albertans that there are many examples across the province of how a case of COVID-19 can spread from one person to many very quickly, even when people are doing their best to follow public health guidelines. At a recent wedding, 43 of 63 guests contracted COVID-19, and at a social party 8 of 24 guests have tested positive with contact tracing still underway. Dr. Hinshaw reminded everyone to keep gatherings small, ensure anyone with symptoms does not attend, and that all those attending keep their distance; wearing masks is also recommended as well as regularly washing or sanitizing hands.

Finally, Dr. Hinshaw announced a significant change in Alberta’s testing approach which will be a critical step for COVID-19 control in the province. Effective immediately, all asymptomatic testing will be paused in anyone with no known exposure. This means that if you do not have symptoms, have no known close contact with a case of COVID-19 and are not linked to an outbreak you will not be eligible for testing. Appointments that have already been booked will be kept until November 4th. This is an important and necessary step to help reduce testing wait times and limit the spread. Anyone experiencing symptoms, who is a close contact of a case or is linked to an outbreak will still receive testing.

To date more than 659,000 asymptomatic tests with no known exposure have been completed with 0.11% coming back positive. This is a small increase from the last statistics shared. Dr. Hinshaw thanked all pharmacies who have helped with testing over the previous months. As always, she reminded Albertans that we are in this together, and we will get through this together.

As of the end of the day October 19th, 2020 there are TWO active cases of COVID-19 in the Drayton Valley/Brazeau County area.

Watch the full update here: youtu.be/4kinuOEPQLk ... See MoreSee Less