Experts urging caution as Alberta sees 170 COVID-related deaths in 2 weeks

Alberta continues to routinely report daily COVID-19 related deaths in the double digits even as the Alberta government publicly muses about lifting widespread public health restrictions later this month.

In the last two weeks alone — between Jan. 18 and Feb. 1 — 170 people, ranging in ages from their 20s to 100s, have died.

Fourteen COVID-related deaths were reported on Wednesday, bringing the total number of Albertans who've died through the pandemic to 3,593.

And experts say the trend will likely continue for the next couple of weeks.

"This is just a continuing sad situation with regards to the pandemic — that two years in we are still seeing significant loss of life," said Craig Jenne, associate professor in the department of microbiology, immunology and infectious disease at the University of Calgary, in an interview on Tuesday.

He worries many Albertans have become desensitized to the situation.

"We have lost more people in one week than we have in the worst flu season over the last six or seven years. So it really hammers home that this is not a mild infection, that Omicron is not less dangerous, and that tragically we're still losing our neighbours, our friends and our community members."

The province's lagging vaccination rates are a key driver, according to Jenne. Just under 79 per cent of eligible Albertans, ages five and up, have at least two doses.

"Unfortunately, here in Alberta we have the largest percentage of unvaccinated Canadians out of any province and that represents a significant population at risk of adverse outcomes and severe disease here," he said.

When you factor in the proportion of Albertans who are vaccinated versus unvaccinated, the death rate for all age groups is much higher for those who are unvaccinated than it is for those who've had two or three doses.

According to Alberta Health statistics, as of Feb.1, the COVID-19 death rate for unvaccinated Albertans (ages five and up) over the past 120 days was 64.9 per 100,000 population.

For those with two doses, the rate dropped to 11.1 and with three doses, it was 8.1.

"We do know that vaccines are still reducing the risk of death by upwards of 40 to 50 times depending on the age group we're looking at, which is still a remarkable level of protection," said Jenne.

The large pool of unvaccinated Albertans leaves a window open, he said, for the more transmissible Omicron variant — which is also known to reinfect people — to latch onto the unvaccinated and find its way to fully vaccinated Albertans who may be at higher risk due to underlying health conditions.