Alberta must begin moving toward endemic approach of managing COVID-19, Hinshaw says

Alberta must prepare to adopt anendemicapproach to managingCOVID-19, Dr.Deena Hinshaw, Alberta's chief medical officer of health, said Thursday.

"What has been important throughout the COVID response is seeking balance between the harms of COVID and the harms of the measures needed to prevent an overwhelming surge of severe outcomes," Hinshaw said at a news conference.

"I believe that after the Omicron wave has subsided, the risk of our system becoming overwhelmed will be substantially reduced, and this will enable [us] to shift our response."

Experts define endemicas when a virus is present in a region at a stable level, without the rising and falling waves of infectionseen so far throughout the coronavirus pandemic.

Changing approaches will take time, Hinshaw said.

"We need to continue monitoring severe impacts and any changes to the virus," she said. "But we cannot continue to use restrictions in the long term, once the risk of system overwhelm has passed."

Not going away

Health leaders in provinces where the Omicron wave and hospital numbers are beginning to subside havereferred to an eventual endemic state as part of the path forward in managing COVID-19, Hinshaw said.

COVID-19 will not go away, says Alberta's top doc

3 years ago

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Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta's chief medical officer of health, says the province will at some point need to move away from a COVID-19 pandemic response into an endemic phase.

"I agree with my colleagues, that this is the direction that we need to move when we see similar trends in our acute-care system in Alberta," she said.

"This is a shift in thinking that can be challenging, given that we have needed to use extraordinary tools at our disposal for the past several years to protect our health system and our communities."

But that doesn't mean COVID-19is going away, she added.

"There will continue to be impacts on our acute-care systems that will rise and fall with seasonalityand new variants that may emerge."

Alberta reported 16more deaths on Thursday. The total number ofdeaths due to COVID-19 inAlberta is now 3,608; that figure includes an earlier report death has been found not to be COVID-related.

The number of patients in hospital with the illness fell for the first time in days, with1,584patients reported Thursday, down slightly from Wednesday.

Of those patients, 112 are in ICU, six more than 24 hours earlier.

Hinshawalso announced that the province will shorten the recommended quarantine period for unvaccinated, asymptomatic household contacts of confirmed cases. The quarantine will decreaseto 10 days from 14.

The movealigns with data showing the incubation period for Omicron is shorter than previous variants, Hinshaw said.

"As new evidence emerges, we will continue to review the appropriateness of the duration of the recommended quarantine period," she said.