EDMONTON — New black and green bins are planned to be delivered to all Edmontonians come September, but some residents are already taking issue with the city’s new garbage collection program.

Corinne Shostak, who lives in the northside neigbourhood of Eaux Claires, is one of those residents. She says the city missed picking up her green compost bin, and there’s security camera footage to prove it.

A recording shows a garbage truck reaching out its remote control arm, missing her garbage, and driving off.

“So my garbage wasn’t picked up,” said Shostak. “As far as I know the only one on the cul de sac.”

Shostak says her green bin was mostly full and placed with the proper clearance from obstacles, when the truck missed it on Thursday, July 15.

“Everything looks like I did it exactly the way that they wanted, it was just missed,” says Shostak.

Mordecai Baba, director of collection services with the city of Edmonton, says Shostak’s cart was likely in the truck driver’s blind spot, and that the missed pick up was an honest mistake.

“We’re not intentionally leaving behind carts,” said Baba. “With every big project like this, we anticipate hiccups along the way.”

Data from the City of Edmonton shows Shostak’s experience is not an anomaly.

Around 3,000 calls have been made to 311 for individual missed garbage pickups and 13,000 households have reported delayed collections since March, when the delivery of the new bins began.

Baba says every properly placed cart should be collected, but people can make it easier for garbage truck drivers by parking off the street.

“The expectation for the driver is to get out of the truck, adjust the bin, and pick it up,” said Baba.

Despite that expectation, Edmontonians are encouraged to call 311 should the city miss their cart in the future.

“I’m hoping it is a one-time thing and I really don’t want to have to go through this again, especially if it was the garbage one,” said Shostak.

With files from CTV Edmonton’s Jeremy Thompson.

EDMONTON — Alberta has 649 active cases of COVID-19 after it added another 81 infections on Wednesday.

There are 95 people in hospital with the disease, 27 of whom are in ICU.

The seven-day positivity rate average is 1.0 per cent.

No new deaths were reported on Wednesday.

Vaccination rates stand at 74.9 per cent for first doses and 60.7 per cent for second shots.

EDMONTON — A loss of taste and smell has been reported in about 70 per cent of people who get COVID-19, and in some cases, they don’t fully recover those senses.

According to Dr. Marc Tewfik, a rhinologist in Montreal, about 70 per cent of patients who get COVID-19 will lose their sense of smell as an initial symptom and about 70 per cent of those people will make a full recovery. However, 20 per cent will have a partial recovery and 10 per cent will have a long lasting-loss of smell.

“The sense of smell is really an important part of our everyday life,” Tewfik explained. “So much of our lives are dependent on that and for people who don’t have symptoms we take it for granted,” Dr. Raiyan Chowdhury, an ICU doctor and ENT, added.

“I just find that people brush it under the carpet as smell and taste and they don’t understand the anguish,” Lori McCoy, a COVID-19 long hauler, said.

Both doctors told CTV News Edmonton both scent and memory are intertwined, and while patients typically recover from the onset of symptoms from COVID-19, it can take time to fully regain the senses.

“If your neuron is still intact you can still recover it just might take a long time,” Chowdhury reassured.

As for McCoy, she was diagnosed with COVID-19 back in November and lost her ability to taste a few days later.

“I’m eight months in and it seems to be getting worse, not better,” McCoy said.

‘WE CALL IT THE COVID SMELL AND TASTE’

McCoy told CTV News she’s now on a “safe foods” diet. She can only eat white rice, white bread, white fish and vanilla protein powder without getting a foul chemical taste in her mouth.

“I can eat lettuce and I can’t eat cucumbers. I had one a little while ago and it tasted like a garbage compost,” she said.

“We call it the COVID smell and taste. Tastes like COVID, smells like COVID.”

According to Tewfik, the nose is unique in the sense that it regenerates cells. To retrain the patient’s nose and their brain to detect smells again, he suggested olfactory training techniques.

He recommends patients find four or five odorants around the home or kitchen, like, cloves, coffee, lemon juice and cinnamon, put them in a small mason jar and smell them twice a day for three months. The success of this method isn’t guaranteed but Tewfik said it doesn’t hurt to try.

McCoy said she’s tried everything to retrain her senses including vitamins, saline rinses, and smell training but so far nothing has worked.

“Food is most people’s joy. You eat it because it makes you happy in the moment,” she recalled.

“Imagine craving something like McDonalds or whatever it is that’s you’re guilty pleasure and you can’t eat it because it tastes like chemical garbage.”

‘IT WOULD BE NICE IF YOU HAD A TIME FRAME’

Both Chowdhury and Tewfik said some of the long-term symptoms of not regaining these senses is depression, weight loss or gain and malnutrition.

“If you can’t enjoy the food it’s hard to enjoy that social interaction,” Chowdhury said. “There is some hope for these patients, it may not be permanent.”

McCoy told CTV News her loss of taste and smell has been the most frustrating symptom but she’s also dealing with chronic fatigue, hair loss, migraines and heart palpitations.

“It’s really depressing because you don’t know how long,” she said. “It would be nice if you had a time frame.”

While the symptoms are persistent for a number of patients with long COVID, Tewfik and Chowdhury both said research is continually being done to find out what’s causing it.

“It’s hopeful we’ll have more treatments for these disorders,” Tewfik said.

“The far majority of people who have had COVID have recovered,” Chowdhury added.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Touria Izri

EDMONTON — Big 7 Travel ranked their top 50 most beautiful movie locations around the globe, and the province of Alberta made it in.

The list featured many iconic locations such as Ta Prohm Temple in Cambodia, which topped the list, as the backdrop for Laura Croft: Tomb Raider, starring Angelina Jolie. Matamata, in New Zealand, as Hobbiton from The Lord of the Rings and Kualoa Ranch, the site for Jurassic Park and Jurassic World, in Hawaii also made the list.

Alberta ranked 33 out of 50 on the list, with various locations such as Bow Valley, Squamish Valley and the Rockies being backdrops for The Revenant, which was released in 2015.

The Revenant is one of many movies to feature Alberta landscapes, some notable others are Jumanji: The Next Level, Interstellar and Inception, according to Travel Alberta. The upcoming Ghostbusters: Afterlife was also filmed in southern Alberta in 2019.

The province has made an effort to become a popular spot for filming recently, after the government adjusted the rules for its film and television tax credit earlier in 2021.

Fort Macleod was also chosen as the setting for HBO’s The Last of Us, based on the award-winning video game series of the same name.

Alberta was the only Canadian location to feature on the Big 7 Travel list.

EDMONTON — A family of six from Evansburg, Alta., is devastated after finding out three of their four children have a rare, terminal disease.

Katie and Jacob Lamprecht told CTV News Edmonton their children Hannah, 8, Kiara, 10 and AJ, 5, were all diagnosed with Batten disease, a nervous system condition which deteriorates both the mind and body, within a year from each other.

In January 2020, Hannah’s teacher noticed she was having troubles reading the whiteboard in class, Katie said. After multiple trips to the optometrist Hannah was originally diagnosed with Stargardt disease, a vision loss illness. To confirm that diagnosis, the specialist followed up with genetic testing.

On Oct. 14, 2020, they received the news that Hannah actually had juvenile Batten disease.

About a month later, Kiara was diagnosed with the same disease. Then in June of this year, the unthinkable happened…AJ was also diagnosed with Batten.

The Lamprechts said Hannah and Kiara are from a previous marriage but AJ is not. They have another son, 13-year-old Drake, but he has a different biological father than his siblings and does not have Batten.

Batten disease occurs when both parents have the same deleted or defective CLN3 gene, and the odds of three parents with the same genetic abnormality are about one in eight billion, according to Katie and Jacob.

There’s only one other confirmed case of Batten in Alberta and only 5,000 reported cases worldwide. The genetic disease affects less than one in every 100,000 children.

“When they gave us that diagnosis and she started listing off the symptoms, such as the vision loss, seizures, and dementia and then when she said life-limiting… I think that’s when our world came crashing down,” Katie explained. “We fell to our knees.”

“We just started crying,” Jacob recalled.

There is no cure for Batten disease and it progresses quickly. Most children with Batten die between the ages of 15 and 30, according to the National Institute of Neurological and Stroke.

However, Jacob said he’s grateful it was caught in the early stages for all three of his children.

“We appreciate that we have time,” he said. “These kids can never drive, they can never ride a bike.”

“They seem normal,” Katie added. “But we know what’s happening inside.”

Jacob and Katie said they spend eight to 10 hours per week going to doctor’s appointments but eventually the kids will need 24/7 care.

“It’s on your mind as soon as you open your eyes in the morning,” Katie said.

“And the last thing when you go to bed,” Jacob added.

The children know they’re ill, but the parents have chosen to not tell them about the official diagnosis.

“I don’t want to break them,” Jacob said.

Every night before bed, the parents said they pray all together as a family.

“We’re praying for a miracle,” Jacob said.

“They’ve asked about asking God to fix their eyes which is heartbreaking.”

Clinical trials and treatments are available in the United States but it costs $1.75 million per child to take part.

Jacob and Katie said they’re unsure of what their next steps are, but they’re raising funds through a GoFundMe page in the hopes of supporting a medical break through for their three children.

“There’s no cure for this,” Jacob said. “And that is the reality we face every day.”

“We’ll find the money and put them through one at a time.”

Katie said the kids have been approved for Make-A-Wish, they’re just in the process of deciding what their wish will be.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Ryan Harding