Chief medical officer of health COVID-19 update – November 23, 2020

Check against delivery.

Thank you, Zoe. Good afternoon everyone.

Today, as Zoe said, my update on COVID-19 will be a little bit shorter than usual, as I am providing new recommendations for Cabinet’s consideration immediately after speaking with you.

First, I need to share with you an update we are making to case investigation and contact tracing.

With the significant increase in new cases over the past several weeks, despite Alberta Health Services effort to recruit and train new contact tracers, and to make calls only to contacts in high-priority settings, the team has not been able to keep up with the current demand.

This means is that there has been a slowly growing backlog of cases over the past several weeks who have not yet had a call from AHS to do the case investigation.

To be clear these have all receive notification of their positive result, it is simply the investigation they have not had the opportunity to complete.

We are left with an incredibly difficult problem to solve.

In order to maximize the effectiveness of the team, I have asked AHS to start with the most recently diagnosed cases and work backwards, trying to reach as many cases as possible, but prioritizing the cases which will have the greatest benefit in reducing further transmission.

Therefore, as a temporary measure, effective tomorrow, if 10 days have passed since an Albertan received their positive COVID-19 test result, AHS will no longer call these individuals to conduct case investigation and contact tracing.

Instead, these individuals will receive a text message that will notify them to not expect a call, and to provide them with guidance on if and when their isolation period has ended.

All of the cases in the backlog did receive notification of their positive test result and they were already instructed to isolate and asked notify their own close contacts via text message. 

I am sorry that this will leave a group of people without the opportunity to have a conversation with AHS to understand where they acquired the infection, and how to better prevent onward spread.

But we must focus on looking forward and using our contact tracers where they have the greatest impact.

I want to reinforce that anyone diagnosed with COVID-19 must stay home and distanced from all others, even members of their same household, until 10 days have passed from the start of their symptoms, or until their symptoms resolve, whichever is longer.

This is true whether or not cases receive a call.

Because Alberta Health Services will not be able to get to every case that is currently in the backlog,

I want to be transparent and also acknowledge that we may not be able to track and record every case that may be linked to a school in the last two weeks.

School-aged children will continue to be part of the priority calls in the most recent cases.

To date, our schools have done an excellent job supporting the public health measures and in-school transmission has occurred only 182 times with 99 of these having only one new case as a result.

I am confident that because of the diligence of our schools, parents, guardians and students, the number of cases in schools will remain stable.

And we will continue to see a limited number of transmission events in schools.

The best thing we can do to protect schools is to lower community transmission.

I recognize that this lack of follow up of some cases is far from ideal.

But we need to focus our resources on current cases in order to have the most impact.

I want to reassure Albertans that we have always prioritized follow up of health care workers and those who work in continuing care, as their samples are flagged through a separate mechanism.

Therefore, cases in these workers should not be part of the backlog.

To further reduce this backlog now and going forward, effective today, all Albertans who test positive for COVID-19 will receive a text message instead of a phone call at the time of their isolation period ending.

Now for today’s update, we have identified 1,549 new cases of COVID-19 in Alberta in the last 24 hours.

We completed about 19,500 tests yesterday, and our provincial positivity rate sits at about 8%.

There are currently active alerts or outbreaks in 304 schools, about 13% of all schools in Alberta.

This number includes 64 schools that are currently on the watch list.

There are now 328 people in hospital with COVID-19, including 62 in ICU.

Sadly, I must also report 5 new deaths from COVID-19 in Alberta.

My thoughts go out to everyone who has lost a loved one to any cause during this pandemic. 

I know that many families and friends continue to grieve those who they’ve lost.

I have now reported 476 deaths from COVID-19, which is both a reminder of this virus’s deadly potential and further proof that we must take steps to reduce community transmission.

It’s clear that we have reached a precarious point in Alberta. 

The virus is spreading faster and more widely than at any other point during this pandemic.

Last Monday, we announced 860 new cases.

On Sunday, less than a week later, we announced 1,584.

The number of fatalities from this virus is growing, and the number of hospitalizations and ICU admissions continues to rise, challenging the health system’s ability to deliver care that Albertans’ need in the future.

This is impacting the care not only for those suffering from COVID-19, but a wide range of other health needs.

To put it as plainly as possible, this is like a snowball rolling down a hill, growing bigger and faster, and it will continue unless we implement strong measures to stop.

We must take action.

Waiting any longer will impact our ability to care for Albertans in the weeks and months ahead.

As Chief Medical Officer of Health, my role is to provide advice to government on how to protect the health of Albertans.

Today, I will meet with the Priorities Implementation Committee of Cabinet to discuss a series of new measures to reduce the rising spread of COVID-19.

Based on their decisions, we will provide a detailed update to Albertans tomorrow.

I will also hold media availabilities every day this week to provide the latest information available, and to answer whatever questions I can.

We will provide more information tomorrow once decisions are made, but I wanted to provide this information today and to provide a message for everyone in our province:

I need your help, and we all need to work together.

The spread of the virus, the impact on our health system, and the challenges it poses to our health are serious.

We all need to reduce our social and cohort interactions as much as possible.

If you can adapt your life to reduce the amount of time that you spend interacting with others, please do so now.

This is a challenging moment, but our province is strong and there is hope.

We are seeing extremely promising news around vaccines and treatments which may start being available sometime in the new year.

There is light at the end of the tunnel, but we cannot let up now.

Every one of us must do our part to limit the spread of COVID-19.

We are in this together, and we are strongest together.

Thank you, and I am now happy to take questions.