Alberta sees record number of ICU admissions as COVID-19 hospitalizations soar

Alberta hospitals are seeing their highest-ever number of patients being admitted for critical care — and part of the reason they're able to keep up is because of a high number of deaths from COVID-19, says the head of Alberta Health Services (AHS).

Over the past five days, the average number COVID-19 intensive care unit admissions has been over 23 per day, Dr. Verna Yiu, president and CEO of Alberta Health Services, said at a Thursday news conference. There are currently 310 people in ICU across the province, including 226 with COVID-19.

"We have never, ever had that number of total patients in ICU before. Never with the prior waves and never in the history of this province," she said.

"It's tragic that we are only able to keep pace with these sort of numbers because, in part, some of our ICU patients have passed away. And this reality has a deep and lasting impact on our ICU teams."

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https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/record-icu-admissions-covid19-1.6186914

Alberta is in dire straits right now, the Provincial government has asked the Federal government for assistance to transport patients to other hospitals in the Province as well as to other Provinces.