High-risk Albertans urged to get another vaccine dose as COVID-19 cases ticking up – CBC

Seniors and immunocompromised Albertans eligible for additional XBB.1.5 dose

May 07, 2024

After trending downward for several months, COVID-19 is on the upswing in Alberta once again.

The province’s respiratory virus dashboard shows a number of key indicators, including case counts, hospitalization numbers and positivity rates, are ticking up.

“Many jurisdictions in Canada have seen a slight bump in late April in the number of COVID cases, the positivity rate and also in their wastewater monitoring,” said Dr. Dan Gregson, an infectious diseases specialist in the Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary.

There are likely a number of factors at play, he said.

“It’s a combination of waning immunity and the virus becoming more transmissible and escaping your immune system that’s been adapted to the prior strain.”

The latest data from Alberta Health shows 114 people hospitalized with SARS CoV-2, an increase of more than two dozen in two weeks. Six patients are in intensive care.

Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/high-risk-albertans-covid-vaccine-1.7195855