Deena Hinshaw: Latest News

Ontario Science Table calls for provincial strategy to manage long COVID “In this year’s influenza season in Australia, case counts were higher than any previous year in the past five years, and while influenza hospitalizations were lower than the worst two influenza seasons in the past five years, they did peak at a level higher than the five-year average,” Dr. Deena Hinshaw wrote.“If we see a similar impact here, what we need to anticipate as being different from any previous year is the combined impact on all our systems of all these viruses circulating at the same time.”Like other jurisdictions, Alberta’s latest influenza season had a late-season start and the numbers of lab-confirmed positive cases were fewer than in the past five years.

Many clinicians and researchers attributed the lower influenza numbers to the more widespread usage of masks among other non-pharmaceutical interventions.At a press conference about adding more AHS business to chartered surgical facilities, Dr. Sid Viner, vice-president and medical director of clinical operations at Alberta Health Services, outlined the plans to protect hospital capacity in the coming cold weather months.“We’ll do that through measures that we know have worked in the past: promoting vaccination – particularly for patients who and people who are more vulnerable to serious health outcomes, our staff and physicians, so that they’re able to continue working and aren’t sidelined by illness – through rigorous adherence to infection prevention and control measures, and as noted, through adding surge capacity – both inpatient and ICU – so that we can protect our surgical capacity,” Viner said.But Premier Jason Kenney seems to think COVID-19’s severity is attenuating.

Jason Kenney Deena Hinshaw