COVID-19 hospitalizations rising as Alberta records another 1,597 cases

Over 100K Albertans book vaccine appointments Anyone born in 2009 or earlier became eligible Monday morning to book COVID-19 vaccines. Dan Grummett reports.

EDMONTON — Alberta reported 1,597 new cases of COVID-19 as hospitalizations continue to increase.

Hospitalizations surged Monday to 690 after being 668 on Sunday and 661 on Saturday.

On Sunday, 158 people were in ICU representing a new pandemic high for ICU admissions. That record was broken Monday after three new admissions were reported.

The Calgary zone leads hospitalizations with 244 people while there are 240 people in hospital within the Edmonton zone.

Ninety-six people were in hospital in the North zone, while the Central and South zones had 71 and 39, respectively.

Hospitalizations have been spiking in the North zone after surpassing their peaks from the second wave.

The Edmonton zone leads ICU admissions with 69 – surpassing its highest number of people in ICU since Jan. 5 – while the Calgary zone has 54.

The North zone has 15 people in ICU, while the South and Central zones have 11 and nine, respectively.

Seven new deaths from COVID-19 were reported Monday.

Approximately 13,921 tests were completed translating to a positivity rate of approximately 11.5 per cent.

Alberta only screened 406 samples for variants of concern. Of those, 388 were the B.1.1.7 variant originally identified in the United Kingdom and 18 were cases of the P.1 variant first identified in Brazil.

The province has 25,438 total active cases of COVID-19. Alberta crossed the 25,000 threshold for active cases on Saturday.

READ MORE: COVID-19 in Alberta: 2,042 new cases reported, province has over 25K active cases

Albertans over the age of 12 were able to start booking vaccine appointments Monday. As of 3:30 p.m., over 123,800 people had booked their vaccine appointment, Alberta Health Services (AHS) told CTV News Edmonton. AHS said 32,766 of those are for Albertans between 12 to 18 years of age.

As of Monday, 182,832 Albertans have recovered from COVID-19.