Doctors Warn of Fifth Wave If Restrictions Are Lifted Too Quickly As COVID Numbers Decline | The Canadian News

Albertans are getting a clearer picture of how hard the fourth wave of the pandemic affected hospitals.

Alberta Health Minister Jason Copping said Thursday that approximately 15,000 surgeries have been postponed.

While Copping said that two-thirds of non-urgent surgeries are now happening again, he cautions that hospitals are still over capacity and the province is not out of the woods yet.

There has been a big drop in the number of people fighting COVID-19 in the hospital, but some intensive care doctors say that if we want those numbers to continue to drop and avoid a fifth wave, the measures must remain in place.

They point to what happened in the summer when Alberta opened too early and let the fourth wave sweep across the province and nearly sink our health care system.

Dr. Noel Gibney hopes that it will take until the end of the year for the intensive care units to return to normal levels.

“We just can’t afford to have another raise after that. Things are looking up but, unfortunately, it will take time to get there, “he said.

“It’s really important that we take care to keep our current measurements in place until at least the new year and until at least we have our ICUs on a baseline. Because if we don’t, we’ll see an increase at the end of another increase at a time before we really start catching up with our backlog of surgical and other medical procedures. “

He expects COVID numbers to spike after Christmas, when people will gather to celebrate, and says this will be a key time for Albertans to be vigilant.

“The pandemic is not over, but we can have a significant impact on how new waves will play out. We can have big or small. I think it is very important that we behave in the most appropriate way, we continue with the restrictions, we get vaccinated ”.

Gibney says that mixed messages from the province have made the fight against COVID even more difficult and that it is important for the government to send a clear message: that the pandemic is not over.

The Director of Infectious Disease Control at the U of A hospital, Dr. Stephanie Smith, admits that Albertans are tired, but agrees that removing restrictions too quickly has backfired in the province before.

“I hate using this term because it’s overused, but we may be in a new normal rather than an old normal. So I anticipate that at least in the first part of 2022 we will continue to have vaccination mandates and extreme vaccine restrictions to go to things like gyms and restaurants and that kind of thing. I don’t think that’s going to change anytime soon, ”he said.

“I think if we can really try to push vaccine numbers and vaccinate as many people as possible, including children, then we could get to a point where we are really seeing… a more endemic type of situation. So we will have more stable hospitalization numbers, not these huge ups and downs that really wreak havoc on the health care system. And that’s really the goal. “

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