Province defends call to stop reporting COVID by municipality

Alberta Health is no longer providing data on municipal COVID-19 case counts, a move some physicians warn could be detrimental to doctors and the public as COVID hospitalizations rise.

Previously, Alberta’s COVID-19 statistics web page included case breakdowns for each municipality and county in the province. But beginning in October – and without an official announcement from the province – those statistics were eliminated in favour of a total case count per AHS zone.

In a statement to the News, Alberta Health said the move was part of an overall process to align “COVID-19 reporting more closely with (that of) other respiratory viruses, such as influenza.” And with the new “reporting changes, some data sets are no longer available.”

Alberta Health defended the move, stating previously reported numbers likely didn’t provide an accurate reflection of community cases, as only laboratory-tested and confirmed cases were included in the data (as changes to Alberta’s laboratory testing eligibility earlier this year would have excluded a large portion of symptomatic community members).

Alberta Health also says the continued publication of the University of Calgary’s wastewater testing offers municipalities a general idea of community cases.

While government-collected case data regarding individual municipalities is no longer being published, the data is still being collected and rolled into data totals for each AHS zone.

As of Oct. 17, the South zone, which includes municipalities south of Calgary including Medicine Hat, Redcliff,

Brooks, Lethbridge and surrounding areas, was sitting at a seven-day case rate of 34.4 – slightly higher than the province’s seven-day rate of 31.4 – with a total of 107 new cases in the past week.

Local emergency physician and AMA president-elect Dr. Paul Parks says he is concerned over the removal of community case data and what it signals, especially as the number of COVID-19 positive patients in Medicine Hat’s hospital and others throughout the province continue to rise.

“There is absolutely no question transparency and objective data is always a good thing,” Parks told the News. “It is that which actually allows us to make informed decisions and know what’s going on.

“There have been some very specific decision decisions made to migrate away from a big pandemic-response model by the government. And I don’t think the public are really aware anymore of what the risks are without having really clear, objective, transparent data.”

Parks says within the past few weeks he has seen a rise in the number of COVID-positive patients presenting to the emergency room locally – a trend reflected in provincial hospitalization statistics. As of Oct. 17, there were 1,037 Albertans hospitalized with COVID, with 33 in ICU.

“There’s over 1,000 COVID patients admitted in the hospitals across the province,” said Parks. “That’s almost getting towards where some of our highest peaks were in other waves.”

Parks has also seen a rise in the number of patients with respiratory illnesses, including influenza, bronchitis, RSV, etc.

While Parks does not wish to discourage anyone from seeking medical treatment at the ER if needed, he is concerned an overload of patients could overwhelm the already strained health-care system. And he urges community members to continue practising good health measures, such as frequent hand washing, wearing masks in large crowds and vaccination for COVID, as well as seasonal influenza.