More than 4,000 healthcare workers have tested positive since COVID arrived

Alberta Health Services says 5.5 per cent of health workers who have been tested for COVID-19 have been positive for the virus since the pandemic began.

By Jan. 13 a total of 74,538 employees within AHS, Alberta Precision Laboratories and Covenant Health had been tested for COVID-19, and of that number 4,127 were positive.

“Our rate of infection for health-care workers remains low — lower than the community rate,” said the AHS communications director for the South zone.

According to Alberta Health data released Monday, among the general population across Alberta, a total of 1,719,560 people had been tested and 117,767 were positive, equating to 6.8 per cent overall in the province throughout the pandemic.

“The low rate of infections (for health-care workers) shows that our PPE guidelines are working and continue to be effective protection against COVID-19,” said the AHS spokesperson.

Of the 1,084 health-care employees whose positive test has since been attributed to a specific source, 345 or 31.8 per cent acquired the infection through exposure in the workplace, according to data AHS provided in a newsletter. Another 3,043 employees who tested positive are still under investigation to determine where the infection occurred.

The number of physicians across the province who have tested positive is slightly lower.

AHS says 4,818 physicians under AHS, APL and Covenant Health were tested for COVID19, and of those 85 or 3.8 per cent tested positive.

Among that group of physicians who tested positive a total of 49 or 16.3 per cent acquired the infection through their workplace. There are another 136 physicians where an investigation is still ongoing to determine the source of the infection.

“We thank our health-care workers for their excellent attention to hand hygiene, personal protective equipment and other controls available to them to limit workplace exposure to COVID-19,” said the AHS spokesperson.

According to Alberta

Health’s website a total of 301 health-care workers in the South zone have tested positive for COVID-19, and currently there are 28 active cases. There have been no deaths of health-care workers in the South zone related to COVID.