EDMONTON – Alberta reported 1,256 new COVID-19 cases and 16 deaths on Friday.
The province now has 17,839 active cases and 1,101 people in hospital, including 250 in ICU.
The 16 latest deaths increased Alberta’s death toll to 2,830.
Out of eligible Albertans, 84.9 per cent have one dose and 75.5 per cent have two.
EDMONTON – An Edmonton Police Service constable has been charged with assault after the arrest of a 26-year-old man in June 2019.
The Alberta Serious Incident Response Team (ASIRT) was called in to investigate what began as a stolen vehicle call.
On June 11, just before 10 p.m., a stolen Chevrolet Colorado truck was spotted by police, according to an ASIRT news release.
When a marked cruiser started to follow the stolen vehicle, it drove away, police said.
“EPS Air 1 was engaged to locate and follow the vehicle, which eventually stopped in the parking lot of an apartment building in the area of 99 Avenue and 106 Street,” the ASIRT news release stated.
“EPS officers responded and were able to box in the stolen vehicle with police vehicles. The driver of the vehicle was ultimately arrested and taken into custody.”
Part of the incident was captured on video and shared on social media.
According to ASIRT, the constable now charged with assault used force both before and after handcuffs were applied during the arrest.
On Thursday, Const. Dylan Awid was charged with one count of assault.
The charge relates to uses of force applied after the 26-year-old man was taken into custody and handcuffed, ASIRT said.
Const. Awid was released and is scheduled to make his first court appearance on Nov. 18 in Edmonton provincial court.
In a written response to CTV News Edmonton, an EPS spokesperson said they are aware of the charge against Const. Awid.
“As per standard procedure, the EPS will await the conclusion of criminal proceedings before instigating a Police Service Regulation investigation,” the statement read in part.
Const. Awid is still on active duty in a non-patrol capacity.
EDMONTON – A Red Deer man who says it’s a miracle he’s still alive is sharing his story of survival after being hospitalized with COVID-19.
Tracey Barclay hopes his cautionary tale of being unvaccinated against the disease will lead others away from making the same mistake.
“The ICU doctor came in and said I had two hours to live.”
Late last month, Barclay’s oxygen levels were dropping, he felt fatigued and had just been told by a Red Deer physician it would likely be his last night on earth.
“So we called in my mother to sit with me while I died,” Barclay recalled.
The 51-year-old hadn’t bothered to get vaccinated, thinking his type of multiple sclerosis would give him a “supercharged immune system” that would protect him from COVID-19.
“I figured I was good, but obviously I wasn’t,” Barclay told CTV News Edmonton. “It wasn’t a very smart decision.”
Barclay spent eight days in hospital after staff at his assisted-living facility called him an ambulance and urged him to get help. He had tested positive for COVID-19 three days earlier.
“They noticed I was in trouble. They noticed my oxygen was dropping,” he said.
Flash forward to the night doctors told Barclay would probably be his last; he thought he was about to die, but still refused to be admitted into the ICU, refused to be put on a ventilator. Despite that, after being put on oxygen, Barclay pulled through.
“I was lucky. I got saved that night,” he said. “I managed to make it through while 34 other unvaccinated people died that night in Alberta.”
Barclay’s story is not the first of its kind. Accounts of COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths of loved ones who remained unvaccinated until the end have been popping up for some time now.
This week, Alberta Health Services featured Barclay in a video posted on social media intended to encourage unvaccinated holdouts to get the shot.
Tracey Barclay, 51, was featured in an Alberta Health Services public awareness video. (Image Courtesy: AHS)It’s a public awareness strategy one health law and policy professor with the University of Alberta says has the potential to get through to the unvaccinated who are sitting on the fence.
“They can be very effective,” Tim Caulfield told CTV News Edmonton on Friday. “They can also leverage the reality that if we see someone like us going through this tragedy it can have more resonance. It becomes relatable.”
Caulfield said it’s worth noting that those who push the anti-vaccine narrative tend to use a similar strategy.
The U of A professor referred to a website aimed at discouraging COVID-19 vaccinations by detailing alleged incidents of adverse reactions to vaccines.
“That kind of scary stuff can be very powerful, so we need to use stories,” he said, “but let’s do it in a more positive, constructive manner to get across the public health message that is really going to make a difference.
“We see these numbers every day,” said Caulfield. “This pulls back the curtain and shows us what those numbers look like, what those numbers really mean and why this is such a devastating disease.”
One non-ICU COVID-19 ward physician at the Royal Alexandra Hospital told CTV News Edmonton stories of unvaccinated patients have been the predominant ones during the fourth wave of this pandemic.
“Usually people who choose not to get vaccinated, it’s based on some sort of misinformation or some sort of narrative that they believed in their head that they don’t need it,” Dr. Neeja Bakshi said.
“It’s like talking to a wall sometimes,” she added.
Dr. Bakshi said while she does see some recovered unvaccinated COVID-19 patients change their minds about the vaccine, she isn’t seeing that happen enough.
“They’re really entrenched in their beliefs and it does make it challenging to care for them. Not from an ethical or moral perspective, but actually physically care for them.
“There’s questions around, ‘What medication are you giving me? Why are you giving me that medication? I don’t believe in that medication. I don’t believe in the ventilator,’ and so it’s really hard to push against that,” she said.
Of the COVID-19 patients she and her colleagues treat, Dr. Bakshi said roughly half of them will admit they should get vaccinated once they recover.
“There’s a fatigue amongst health-care workers about talking to these patients at this point,” she said. “What I’m seeing and what I think a lot of my colleagues are seeing are people that aren’t vaccine hesitant, they’ve just decided the vaccine wasn’t for them.”
And it’s those people Barclay is hoping to reach.
“Get vaccinated,” he said. “It could save your life.”
Barclay says he’s booked an appointment to get his COVID-19 vaccine. Time will tell how many others follow suit after hearing his story.
As of Thursday, there were 1,094 people in hospital with COVID-19 in Alberta, 248 of those in an ICU.
There have been over 2,800 COVID-19-related deaths in Alberta.
With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Dan Grummett
Edmonton – Crews battled an early morning fire at an east Edmonton industrial complex on Friday morning.
Flames broke out around 5 a.m. at a complex near 75 Street and Argyle Road.
Social media video showed flames coming from the roof of a building in the complex.
Fire crews told CTV News that three business were affected, and two of them were likely damaged beyond repair.
Fire crews are expected remain on scene for several hours.
EDMONTON – An environmental group says an exchange of coal exploration lease applications in Alberta’s Rocky Mountains suggests mining companies expect to be able to go ahead with their plans despite a provincial debate on the industry’s future.
“They wouldn’t be buying those lease applications if they didn’t think they could do something with them down the road,” said Katie Morrison of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society.
Morrison said her group has found that Cabin Ridge Project Ltd., one of several companies hoping to develop open-pit coal mines in the Rockies, has purchased 2,000 hectares of coal exploration lease applications from a second company, Peace River Coal.
The purchases took place over July and August, after Alberta suspended exploration activity and the sale of new leases in response to public concern over the high-impact industry in one of the province’s most beloved landscapes. The purchases also coincided with the work of a government panel tasked with hearing from Albertans about how or if they want industry on those summits and foothills.
The purchases concern so-called Category 2 lands, which are deemed the most environmentally sensitive and valuable.
Energy Minister Sonya Savage said she is baffled.
“I am puzzled why any coal company would want to purchase a lease application for Category 2 lands in that area given the strong concerns raised by Albertans,” she said in an email. “We have been clear that all exploration activity in that region has been halted.”
Cabin Ridge did not return a request for comment.
The Alberta Energy Regulator, which approved the transfers, referred questions to Alberta Energy.
Morrison said the lease transfers violate the spirit of the government’s promise not to sell new exploration leases in the area. She said the transfers should not have been approved by the regulator.
“Allowing Cabin Ridge to buy a new coal lease is sending the signal that things are progressing as normal, that they’ll get this coal engagement thing out of the way and then they’ll be allowed to keep going despite the fact we’ve said, ‘let’s stop it all until we figure it out.’
“There’s no public interest reason for (the regulator) to have approved the transfer of that application.”
Alberta has been debating the possibility of more coal mines in a long stretch of the Rockies that covers most of their range in the province since the United Conservative government revoked a 1976 policy that protected them. Those landscapes are favourite recreation destinations, as well as the source of most of the province’s drinking water.
A public outcry against coal mines, including voices from urban environmentalists to small-town mayors and ranchers, forced the province to restore protections and strike a committee to hear from Albertans before making further moves.
The head of that committee, Ron Wallace, has said it’s clear from the input he’s received that Albertans want an overall policy for what happens on those landscapes, not just a list of where coal mines might be acceptable. His committee is slated to report in November.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 8, 2021.