On Friday afternoon, the province released new COVID-19 data that showed a woman in her 80s living in the Chartwell St. Albert Retirement Residence has lost her life to the virus.
Twenty-three St. Albertans have now died from the virus.
The city has dropped below 200 active cases of COVID-19 for the first time since Nov. 22, with 199 active cases currently diagnosed by Alberta Health. This is a drop of seven active cases, down from 206 yesterday.
In the past 24 hours, there have been 15 new cases of COVID-19 diagnosed in the city, with the number of total cases since the beginning of the pandemic rising from 1,707 to 1,722.
Recoveries have hit 1,500, with another 21 people recovering in the past 24 hours, bringing the total up from 1,479.
Across Alberta, there were 1,183 new cases of COVID-19 reported, bringing the total active cases to 13,628.
There are currently 851 people in the hospital, and 135 of them are in the ICU.
There were 24 deaths reported Friday by Alberta Health.
The province ran 16,765 tests in the past 24 hours with a positivity rate of seven per cent.
As of Jan. 7, some 37,686 doses of the vaccine have been administered in Alberta, which works out to 852.3 doses per 100,000 people.
On Friday, the province announced that starting immediately, vaccine appointments will be offered to health-care workers in medical, surgical and COVID-19 units.
This means about 3,300 COVID-19 unit staff and 15,400 medical and surgical unit staff are now eligible for the vaccine.
In addition, a directive from Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw has been issued that will allow doctors, nurses and pharmacists who are not Alberta Health Services employees to deliver the vaccine.
“There are many regulated health practitioners who are authorized and have the knowledge, skill and competence to issue a vaccine. This directive will help us empower as many of our dedicated health-care workers as possible to join the broader team and help immunize Albertans," Hinshaw said.
