Twenty-two more deaths in Alberta have been linked to COVID-19.
According to data posted on the provincial government’s website on Wednesday afternoon, 3,505 people in Alberta have now died of the disease since the pandemic began, up from 3,483 a day earlier.
Late Wednesday afternoon, Alberta Health clarified that 23 deaths were tied to COVID-19 over the past 24 hours, however, a previously reported COVID (-19) death was identified to be non-COVID (-19). As a result, the total deaths will increase by 22. ”
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The number of people in hospital with the coronavirus rose to 1,418 on Wednesday, up from 1,377 on Tuesday. However, the number of COVID-19 patients in Alberta requiring intensive care dropped slightly, down to 109 on Wednesday from 111 on Tuesday.
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Alberta Health reported Wednesday that 3,341 new lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases were identified over the past 24 hours. The government’s website says the province’s positivity rate now sits at 37.5 per cent.
The total number of active COVID-19 cases in Alberta was at 47,743 on Wednesday, down from 51,157 a day earlier. However, public health officials have noted that because only certain Albertans are eligible to receive PCR tests, the true number of people with COVID-19 is likely 10 times higher than numbers being reported.
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Of current active cases, the Calgary zone (22,751) has more than any other region in the province, followed by the Edmonton zone (15,683), the Central zone (3,703), the South zone (2,617) and the North zone (2,484) . There are 505 active cases that have not been linked to a particular zone.
Cases involving Omicron subvariant BA.2
A spokesperson for the Alberta government confirmed Wednesday that the province has so far identified “approximately three cases of the Omicron subvariant BA.2” through its ongoing genetic surveillance, “which involves full genome sequencing of hundreds of samples each week.”
The BA.2 sub-lineage of Omicron was designated as a variant under investigation by the UK Health Security Agency on Friday.
READ MORE: Canada has detected BA.2 cases. What we know about this Omicron subvariant
More than 10,000 cases have been reported in 47 countries, according to data by cov-lineages.org. So far, 51 cases of the BA.2 variant have been detected in Canada mainly from international travelers, the Public Health Agency of Canada confirmed to Global News on Tuesday.
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