BANFF – Banff is experiencing its second COVID-19 spike.
Banff and Lake Louise went from six confirmed positive cases of the virus on Jan. 25 to 34 by Tuesday (Feb. 2). There have been 433 confirmed cases in Banff and Lake Louise since the pandemic began, with 399 people recovered.
Silvio Adamo, the director of emergency management for the Town of Banff, said it’s believed the source of the recent spike is from indoor social gatherings, noting employers in the community are following all the COVID-19 protocols.
“It’s safe at work as much as it can be with this virus, but it’s uncontrolled residential settings, and we really need to get the message out to those folks,” he said.
“It can spread and spread quickly, and even though you may not die from it when you’re 23 or 24, you may spread it to someone who can die or become seriously ill.”
Banff’s first spike was in November, reaching 192 active cases on Nov. 30.
The community went from a case count of below 10 to 192 within 14 days, forcing the municipality to declare a state of local emergency, which was rescinded last month as cases dropped.
“We learned our lesson the hard way with that big spike where we jumped to almost 200 active cases in a very short time,” Adamo said.
“This virus hasn’t gone away and we have to be super vigilant at this point in order for it not to spread.”
However, Adamo said this most recent spike appears to be better contained.
He said there were new positive cases every day over the previous week, with Monday being the first day with no new cases identified. However, Tuesday had two new cases.
“Thankfully, because of the province’s contact tracing being more active now, we’ve been able to, I believe, contain this second spread,” Adamo said.
Testing in Banff is available at the Alberta Health Services’ (AHS) public health offices on Lynx Street on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and at Alpine Medical Clinic on Bear Street.
Adamo said COVID testing availability in Banff is meeting current demands.
“We have access to very good testing and that isn’t the issue right now; we are keeping up with testing,” he said.
“Contact tracing has improved significantly in the province and so it’s just really a matter of people doing the right thing here for a little bit longer.”
With the federal government indicating Canada likely won’t achieve mass COVID-19 vaccination until the fall, a group of Banff businesses are working with Rapid Test and Trace Canada on a rapid testing and tracing pilot program for Banff.
Rapid testing involves using rapid antigen tests to test large groups of people frequently, regardless of whether or not they are showing symptoms, to identify and stop the spread of COVID-19.
Adamo said the Town of Banff’s emergency coordination centre is in preliminary talks with this group of Banff businesses.
“We’re still working with those folks to see if it’s something that the emergency coordination centre is going to endorse and recommend to council,” he said. “But we’re still in the early stages of that.”
With new variants of the virus emerging, Adamo said this virus still needs to be taken very seriously.
“It has actually gotten more complicated due to the variant and those variants spread much quicker,” he said.
“We know there are at least 50 identified cases in our province as of yesterday (Feb. 1), and I am certain that there is even more that we haven’t identified because the province has just recently ramped up screening for those variants.”
As of Feb. 2, there were 6,912 active cases in the province, including 556 people in hospital due to COVID-19, including 97 in intensive care.
In the previous 24 hours, there were 13 additional COVID-related deaths reported to AHS, bringing the province-wide death toll from the virus to 1,660.
In this region, there have been several outbreaks declared since the pandemic began, including Lake Louise Ski Resort, Nakiska Ski Resort, Origins at Spring Creek, Baker Creek Resort and Canmore General Hospital.
