Health minister sounds alarm on COVID spread

First case of contagious U.K. variant unrelated to travel identified in Alberta

Alberta's minister of health expressed concerns about the possible spread of COVID -19 variants within the province on Monday as the first non-travel related case of the United Kingdom variant has been identified.

Twenty cases of the U.K. variant and five cases of the variant from South Africa have been detected in Alberta and all but one have been directly linked to travel, Health Minister Tyler Shandro said during a Monday news conference. Both variants of the novel coronavirus have proven more contagious than the original, though the rate of severe outcomes may remain unchanged.

“If the variants spread unchecked, we would see more than 3,600 people needing hospital care at one time within two months. Three times the number that you'd expect for the current COVID -19 virus,” said Shandro, displaying projections on a screen to show the potential dangers of the variants.

“There's no question that this kind of exponential growth would push our health-care system to the brink.”

Recent studies show these variant infection rates to be 30 to 50 per cent higher than the original strain of the virus. Other studies are still being done to determine how their threat of severe outcomes compares to the original.

Shandro's projections show that within a six-week time frame and with no public health measures in place, 250 cases of the current strain of COVID-19 in Alberta would grow to 2,127 cases. With the same conditions, 250 cases of the variants would multiply to 10,217 cases.

“These variants are a challenge that all jurisdictions in the world now face,” said Shandro.

Alberta Health Services and Alberta Precision Labs are enhancing their capacity to do genetic analysis on samples, enabling them to fully sequence 400 samples per week by next week. Rapid screening capacity for mutations of concern is also being expanded to up to 300 samples per day.

Participants in the border pilot program, which allowed for an easier process upon returning from travel, will now require travellers to isolate until their second negative test comes back.

Every sample from those tests will be analyzed for the U.K. and South African variants in an effort to catch new cases as they arrive, Shandro said.

Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta's chief medical officer of health, said they are investigating the single U.K. variant case that isn't linked to travel to better understand the source.

In an earlier press conference in Ottawa, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said the federal government is “looking seriously” at tougher travel measures to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, including mandatory hotel quarantines for air travellers returning from non-essential trips abroad.

“I would like to stress that we are taking this measure very, very seriously. We are considering the issue very, very seriously,” Freeland said.

Freeland's remarks build on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's publicly expressed openness to tighter restrictions, sparking questions about how a stricter isolation regime would work.

VACCINATIONS GRIND TO NEAR HALT IN ALBERTA

While concern has risen about community spread of the variants of COVID -19, Alberta's vaccination rollout has slowed to a near halt.

Between Saturday and Sunday, only 646 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine were administered to Albertans — 240 on Saturday and 406 on Sunday.

Entering its sixth week of immunizations, Alberta has yet to put 100,000 doses in people's arms, having delivered 99,453 inoculations by the end of day Sunday.

“We need more vaccines. We have the ability to vaccinate many, many more Albertans and to expand the groups who are eligible, but before we do that, we need the doses,” Shandro said.

Canada is not due to receive any Pfizer-biontech vaccines this week as the company revamps its operations, and deliveries are expected to be slow for the next few weeks.

Trudeau has stressed the delay is only temporary and Canada is expected to receive four million doses of the Pfizer vaccine by the end of March.

Alberta's NDP continues to call on Premier Jason Kenney for further transparency about the vaccine rollout, requesting the vaccine task force provide daily technical briefings.

“I get countless emails and phone calls and messages every day from Albertans who want to know what the plan is and when their turn will come,” said David Shepherd, NDP critic for health, in a statement.

“Many of them are extremely frustrated at not knowing how these decisions are being made, or even who is making them.”

Meanwhile, Alberta recorded its fewest new COVID-19 cases in a single day since Oct. 23, reporting 362 new cases Monday.

The new cases came from 7,186 tests, which results in a positivity rate of five per cent — higher than the 4.5 per cent positivity rate the day before.

“I want to thank the many, many Albertans who continue to follow the public health orders in place. You are the majority and you are the reason we continue to see promising progress in our daily case numbers and positivity rate,” said Hinshaw.

There are 637 patients in hospital due to COVID -19 infections, including 113 in intensive care units.

Twenty-five deaths were reported Monday, bringing the province's death toll to 1,574.