Alberta's COVID-19 deaths up 42, hospitalizations down 13, provincial data shows

The totalnumber of Albertans to die from COVID-19 increased by more than 40 in the latest reporting week, while hospitalizations decreased slightly, provincial data shows.

The province's death count since the COVID-19 pandemic began is now 4,790, an increase of 42 people from a week ago.

Meanwhile, the number of people in hospital and intensive care units with COVID-19 havedropped.

As of Tuesday, there were 857 Albertans in hospital with the illness, including 20 who are in ICU. Last week, there were870 peoplein hospital with COVID-19, including 32 ICU patients.

The seven-day PCR test-positivity rate dropped by more than three percentage points from the previous reporting week, from 21.86 per cent to 18.77 per cent.

From Aug. 23to 29, public health officials identified 1,367new COVID-19 cases. There were 1,858 cases confirmed in the previous reporting week.

Despite the decreases, more virus is believed to be circulating throughout the province, as few people are eligible to receive a PCR test and provincial data excludes positive rapid test results.

As of end-of-day Monday, 77.6 per cent of people living in Alberta including those who are ineligible hadreceived two doses of COVID-19 vaccine; 82 per cent of Albertans hadreceived at least one dose a 0.1-percentage-point increase from a week ago.

Of all Albertans, 39.1 per cent hadreceived three doses of vaccine as of Monday, up 0.1 percentage points from last week.

Parents with children aged five to 11 were able to start booking appointments for their kids to get their booster dose of a COVID-19 vaccine Monday, with doses slated to startbeing administered Wednesday,Alberta Health announced last week.

31 confirmed monkeypox cases

Public health officials have confirmed total 31 cases of monkeypox casesin Alberta as of Aug. 26, an increase of 12 cases in a two-week period, according to Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC)data.

To date, 1,251 total cases have been confirmed throughout Canada, most of which were identified in Ontario and Quebec, according to the PHAC.

Albertanswho are 18 or older andmeet certain eligibility criteria can book an appointment to receive a monkeypox immunization.