'No margin for error': Albertans look for immediate impact from restrictions as COVID-19 cases climb
As Alberta's latest round of COVID-19 health measures take hold, experts are predicting a dicey stretch — but there is reason to believe case numbers could soon decrease.
The number of daily new cases reported has been above 1,300 for two and a half weeks, but the rolling average is somewhat levelling off.
Infectious disease expert Dr. Craig Jenne says he's hoping new rules around masking and mandatory vaccination will make an even bigger dent on the figures.
"We simply have no margin for error," he said. "There's no room, no care left. We need to make sure these numbers stop rising and begin to decline rapidly."
The province's health care system has taken a major hit in September.
COVID-19 patients are flooding the facilities and surge capacity is quickly filling.
Help is on the way from Ottawa, but even as case numbers climb, Albertans will likely still be facing another week of growing hospital admissions.
Hospitalizations are a lagging indicator, which means they'll take longer to be impacted by the new restrictions. But, in other jurisdictions, similar health measures were able to bring hospital admissions and ICU numbers to a manageable level.
In British Columbia, rapidly-climbing cases were all but levelled out by a strict vaccine passport mandate.
Alberta's newest round of rules are less stringent, but experts believe they'll still have an effect on what is becoming a dire situation.
"(Alberta's) rate of growth has declined to, instead of five or six per cent a day, down to two per cent a day," said Dean Karlen of the B.C. Modelling Group.
"So that's in the right direction. In British Columbia, we were growing at two per cent a day about a month ago. Now we're down to zero."
Still, Jenne says there's no reason to become complacent.
"We're hoping that this means we're starting to plateau," he told CTV News. "But this plateau is still unmanageably high."
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Doctors say capital gains tax changes will jeopardize their retirement. Is that true?
The Canadian Medical Association asserts the Liberals' proposed changes to capital gains taxation will put doctors' retirement savings in jeopardy, but some financial experts insist incorporated professionals are not as doomed as they say they are.
Something in the water? Canadian family latest to spot elusive 'Loch Ness Monster'
For centuries, people have wondered what, if anything, might be lurking beneath the surface of Loch Ness in Scotland. When Canadian couple Parry Malm and Shannon Wiseman visited the Scottish highlands earlier this month with their two children, they didn’t expect to become part of the mystery.
Fair in Ontario, flurries in Labrador: Weather systems make for an erratic spring
It's no secret that spring can be a tumultuous time for Canadian weather, and as an unseasonably mild El Nino winter gives way to summer, there's bound to be a few swings in temperature that seem out of the ordinary. From Ontario to the Atlantic, though, this week is about to feel a little erratic.
What do weight loss drugs mean for a diet industry built on eating less and exercising more?
Recent injected drugs like Wegovy and its predecessor, the diabetes medication Ozempic, are reshaping the health and fitness industries.
He replaced Mickey Mantle. Now baseball's oldest living major leaguer is turning 100
The oldest living former major leaguer, Art Schallock turns 100 on Thursday and is being celebrated in the Bay Area and beyond as the milestone approaches.
What a urologist wants you to know about male infertility
When opposite sex couples are trying and failing to get pregnant, the attention often focuses on the woman. That’s not always the case.
'It was instant karma': Viral video captures failed theft attempt in Nanaimo, B.C.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
Bank of Canada officials split on when to start cutting interest rates
Members of the Bank of Canada's governing council were split on how long the central bank should wait before it starts cutting interest rates when they met earlier this month.
Quebec nurse had to clean up after husband's death in Montreal hospital
On a night she should have been mourning, a nurse from Quebec's Laurentians region says she was forced to clean up her husband after he died at a hospital in Montreal.