Alberta BA.2 infections 'may be at a plateau,' but wastewater levels close to BA.1 peak in Edmonton: Copping

Alberta Health Minister Jason Copping gives a COVID-19 update in Edmonton, Tuesday, Sept. 21, 2021. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson

Alberta's health minister says early signs show BA.2 infections "may be at a plateau" in the province.

In a weekly COVID-19 update in Edmonton, Jason Copping told reporters Alberta saw increases in virus circulation and hospitalizations over the past seven days, "but they're smaller and moving more slowly than we saw in the initial Omicron wave."

"We're seeing some impact from the BA.2 subvariant, but so far, it's much less than we saw a few months ago with BA.1," Copping added.

Alberta added 6,125 COVID-19 cases from PCR tests between April 12 and April 18, which averaged to a positivity rate of 25.9 per cent.

Wastewater levels are high but mostly below BA.1 levels, except for in Edmonton, where they are close to that peak, Copping said.

"More importantly, we're not seeing the same impact in hospital admissions that we've seen before," the health minister said.

Hospitalizations increased to 1,126, but ICU admissions dropped from 46 to 43.

Alberta also reported 49 new COVID-19 deaths on Wednesday.

The province will update its data next Wednesday.