Canada is heading towards a potential sixth COVID-19 wave, experts say, as cases and hospitalizations have started to creep back up again across the country.

While average daily case counts have levelled off nationally, there continues to be regional variability across the country with several jurisdictions reporting increases, said Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer in her latest weekly update on Friday.

Some doctors and scientists are warning that Alberta's sixth COVID-19 wave has already begun despite a message from government that it's too early to say for sure.

Several key COVID metrics, including positivity rates and wastewater levels, are starting to tick up again a month after the province lifted virtually all remaining public health measures.

"The numbers are not good," said Dr. Noel Gibney, professor emeritus of critical care medicine at the University of Alberta.

"We're in the very early phase of the sixth wave. Many other provinces are. The difference is they've admitted it."

New hospitalization rates are starting to rise again, too, and the trends are a big concern for Gibney.

"It looks like we're starting out the sixth wave with a really high baseline of hospitalizations. And the worry is that we could get way over the number of hospitalizations that we saw in the fifth wave."

The latest publicly available numbers show that, as of Monday, there were 964 people in hospital with COVID, including 47 in intensive care. One week earlier, there were 956 in hospital with 56 in the ICU.