EDMONTON – Scary numbers. Alberta, which until a few days ago was “stay open for good”, registered 2,020 new cases of Covid-19 on Friday (out of a total of 17,000 tests carried out). A huge amount, considering that Alberta has just over 4.3 million inhabitants. To make a comparison: today Italy, which has over 60 million inhabitants, recorded 3,838 new cases (out of a total of 263,571 swabs analyzed). 

Alberta’s positivity rate itself leaves no room for doubt: 11.7 percent. The number of new cases detected on Friday (70% of them unvaccinated) is the highest the province has seen since May 7, when 2,032 were reported. And, now, there are more than 19,000 active cases of Covid-19 in the province.

The situation in the hospitals where 911 Covid patients are now hospitalized, 215 of whom in intensive care, is of total emergency. Of the latter, 193 are not vaccinated, or about 90%. Overall, including non-Covid patients, there are 260 intensive care (ICU) beds occupied in Alberta. A number dangerously close to the total number of ICUs available in the province, 286, so much so that Alberta Health Services (AHS ) opened, in a few days, new intensive care spaces bringing the total available to 322 beds. But that may not be enough, given that in the last week the number of patients in ICUs has increased by 13%.

The situation, in short, is explosive. To such an extent that leaders of several unions representing health workers in Alberta have written a letter to Prime Minister Jason Kenney for assistance to both the military and the Red Cross. “We strongly urge you to ask the federal government to immediately deploy the army, the Red Cross and all available medical personnel resources from other provinces to the overwhelmed hospitals in our province,” reads the letter, dated September 18.

The document, signed by the president of the United Nurses of Alberta Heather Smith, by the president of the Health Sciences Association of Alberta Mike Parker, by the president of CUPE Alberta Rory Gill and by the president of the Alberta Federation of Labor Gil McGowan, highlights the dramatic situation of the health system of the province where new restrictions – in a lockdown-style – were triggered only last weekend – , decided by Prime Minister Jason Kenney who had to give up his slogan “stay open for good” in the face of the spread of the virus.

Fear moves people and in the last hours the province has seen a peak in vaccinations: for weeks the doses had been less than 10,000 per day, on Friday over 28,000 were registered in twenty-four hours, 16,231 of which were first dose: the highest number since June 5th.

To date, the province has administered more than 5.75 million doses of the vaccine. Of the eligible population, 80.1 percent have received at least one dose, while 71.8 percent are now fully vaccinated. Hoping it’s not too late, as 18 people died on Friday.

In the pic, the Emergency Room sign at Chinook Regional Hospital in Lethbridge, Alberta (photo by Graham Ruttan on Unsplash)