St. Albert reported 17 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday, with 28 more people recovering.
The city now has 184 active cases of COVID-19, the lowest amount since Nov. 21.
The deaths of five more people were reported in the city on Tuesday, all linked to the outbreak at the Youville Home.
Morinville also reported two more deaths on Monday, including a man in his 70s who passed away Jan. 10. His death is linked to an outbreak at the Aspen House.
There are currently 37 active cases in the town with 293 people having recovered since the pandemic began.
In Sturgeon County, there are 44 active cases with 501 people having recovered since the beginning of the pandemic.
Across the province, 38 Albertans lost their lives to COVID-19, bringing the amount who have died since the pandemic began up to 1,345.
"These figures are not just numbers, but lives,” Albertan Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw said.
Some 652 new COVID-19 cases were diagnosed in the province, with 9,300 tests run. The positivity rate is currently 6.8 per cent.
Some 819 Albertans in hospital with 132 of them in the Intensive Care Unit.
Contact tracing
Hinshaw said Alberta Health Service is working hard to expand the contact tracing capacity of the province and they are now able to reach out within 24 hours to all high priority cases, including schools, healthcare workers and long-term care workers.
The province is working toward the goal of contacting all new COVID-19 patients within 24 hours, but it is not known when the province will reach that goal.
The province has hired more contact tracers and there are fewer cases being diagnosed, which is allowing for the contact tracing system to be able to respond to the COVID-19 crisis.
During the peak of the contact tracing system's collapse, between Dec. 10 and Dec. 15, the source of 80 per cent of all COVID-19 cases was unknown. Now, 47 per cent of Alberta's COVID-19 cases have an unknown exposure.
Hinshaw said the system will never be able to accurately find the source of all COVID-19 cases, but said typically the number of COVID-19 cases that can't be identified will sit at 30 per cent.
