Alberta Health Services admits on their website they are only screening a sample of positive cases and to “Interpret Case Numbers with Caution”
in other words, AHS screening of positive cases is incomplete therefore ‘don't trust our numbers’.
Again AHS decided not to respond to inquiry sent via twitter.
Due to this, it is of questionable value to continue creating the monthly Calgary zone case & variant trend chart updates based on information AHS admits is lacking integrity.
With Alberta Health’s recommendation to not trust their May 2021 numbers, this may be the final covid update I post, the 1 chart I have not seen them display - Calgary Zone Total ACTIVE Variants - based on their daily published data I could find. I did not see it reported separately or track hence the Feb - Mar gap, however I was able to calculate the initial period.
*Note how fast the reported case #’s dropped, and how variant case #’s did not become the dominant strain as predicted, or as seen in other countries. It is unclear whether this is due to the inaccurate case counts AHS admitted, increasing vaccination rates or people spending more time outdoors.
Given the large # of service workers available receiving CERB payments, there could be an effort by AHS to tap these resources to help make tracing phone calls or case count. This would also reduce pulling trained nurses from the front line to man the phone lines for tracing - and then claim a shortage of nurses.
India variant identified in Alberta May 3.
Schools opened this week though, and the province plans to reopen instead of follow the proven zero covid strategy (details in April covid link) that has consistently resulted in covid free / restriction free countries/provinces.
Regarding opening - closing restriction criteria; previous searches have not turned up with a result nor have my inquiries been answered, however the above was recently released. It appears it is based on hospitalizations & vaccination rates.
I’ve been wanting to do an analysis to see if previous opening - closing restriction criteria were based on case numbers. Restrictions were communicated as being in place to reduce healthcare overwhelm, which based on wait times was over capacity in many was prior to the corona virus.
This graphic from CBC allowed me to pull the numbers I’ve been tracking and do the analysis:
Alberta Covid-19 Restriction & Reopening Timeline from CBC
May 13 2020 - Stage 1 reopen around 1000 cases & dropping
Jun 11 2020 – stage 2 reopen around 372 cases & increasing
Jul 18 2020 – cases continue climbing past 1000 (would this not trigger Stage 1?)
Nov 23 2020 – after cases climb for 5 months up over 13,000 modest new restriction announced
Dec 13 2020 – after cases further climb over 20,000 stricter restrictions announced
Feb 8 2021 – even though cases have only dropped to 5000, and variants have been identified, this is ignored in lieu of ‘step 1’ easing of restriction (previous trigger 1000 cases)
Feb 23 2021 – at the 2 week mark after easing of restrictions – the corona virus incubation period – cases predictably start increasing again
Mar 8 2021 – ‘step 2’ easing, followed by predictable exponential increase
Apr 6 2021 – instead of addressing the exponential increase, it is allowed to increase above 11,000 before return to ‘step 1’
May 5 2021 – after allowing the largest case climb to date, over 24,300, restrictions similar to the initial pandemic response (which crested at 3,000 cases) are finally returned
May 9 2021 – Alberta hits 25,185 and cases start dropping, however this is only 4 days after restrictions instead of the 2 week incubation period, leaving two explanations:
transmission slowed due to other factors towards the end of April (may include vaccination; people outdoors due to weather)
the numbers are incorrect, plausible as Alberta Health reported on their website that screening is incomplete (“only a sample”) and not to rely on their numbers (“interpret with caution”), therefore it is unclear what the actual case counts are
open to other explanations, please share
A cases hospitalized timeline may help determine whether that was what the openings - closing were based on. There is no evidence it was case #’s.
Predictably, restrictions reduce cases, however based on AHS’s recommendation not to rely on their numbers, it is unknown if cases are actually under 9000.