The death of a man in his 90s who passed away on Dec. 21 has been linked to a COVID-19 outbreak at the Youville Home in St. Albert.
New provincial data released Wednesday shows the additional death this week bringing the total deaths in St. Albert since the beginning of the pandemic back up to 10.
St. Albert currently has 336 active cases, a significant drop from yesterday. Overnight, the city added 25 new cases, bringing the total since the beginning of the pandemic up to 1,461 cases; an additional 53 people also recovered from the virus, bringing the recoveries up to 1,115 since the pandemic began.
Sturgeon County has 98 active cases with 393 people having recovered since pandemic began. Morinville has 78 active cases with 194 people having recovered from the virus.
Across Alberta, another 1,301 new cases of COVID-19 were announced Wednesday, with more than 19,000 tests carried out. The current positivity rate in the province is 6.8 per cent.
There are currently 821 people in the hospital with 146 of them in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
The deaths of another 19 people were reported provincewide on Wednesday. So far, 890 people have died in Alberta from the virus.
Holiday COVID-19 reporting
Over the holiday season, the COVID-19 provincial update schedule will change.
The province will not be providing online updates or media availabilities from Dec. 24 to 27 and from Dec. 31 to Jan. 3. Instead, Alberta Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw will give high-level daily data via Twitter at around 11 a.m., except for on Christmas Day.
On Dec. 28 there will be a live update, with the usual data online and a detailed breakdown of the data. On Dec. 29 and 30, the website will be updated each day.
From Dec. 31 to Jan. 1, there will be no updates to the website but preliminary data will be published every day through Hinshaw's twitter account.
On Wednesday, Hinshaw said the plan in place for schools is currently working, and school cases plateaued in early December and have started to drop since team sports and group activities were paused. Hinshaw said this shows events taking place outside of schools were fuelling the spread of COVID-19.
Hinshaw reminded Albertans to limit their physical contact with people outside of their households as much as possible through the holidays. Alberta's top doctor said the Thanksgiving holiday caused a spike in cases that the province is still dealing with.
