St. Albert is reporting another death from COVID-19 for the fifth day in a row.
On Friday afternoon, provincial data showed 10 people have now died from the virus in St. Albert.
A man in his 80s whose death is linked to the outbreak at Chartwell St. Albert Retirement Residence passed away from the virus Dec. 14.
There have been three deaths linked to the Chartwell retirement residence in St. Albert.
There has also been another death reported in Morinville, bringing the number of people who have died from COVID-19 in the town to three.
The province reported a total of 25 deaths Alberta-wide on Friday. Since the pandemic began, 815 have died from COVID-19 in the province.
In St. Albert, another 33 cases of COVID-19 were reported by Alberta Health on Friday. Twenty-nine people recovered from the virus overnight. St. Albert currently has 359 active cases, up from 356 reported yesterday.
Since the pandemic began, 970 people have recovered from the virus in the city.
Across the province, 1,413 new cases of COVID-19 were diagnosed overnight.
There were 19,500 tests run in the past 24 hours with a positivity rate of 7.4 per cent.
There are currently 759 people in the hospital with 141 of those in the ICU
Alberta chief medical officer of health Deena Hinshaw said they are starting to see some good news in the data.
“We are starting to see some early positive signs in our province,” Hinshaw said.
Hinshaw said the provincial positivity rate is on a downward trend from 10.97 per cent on Dec. 3 to 7.4 per cent reported on Friday.
But while there is good news, Hinshaw said the fight is far from over. Hospitalizations and ICU numbers will continue to rise over the coming weeks, as Hinshaw said the are “lagging indicators.”
“Our heath system continues to feel the strain, which will increase in the days ahead,” Hinshaw said.
“We must do everything possible to protect the care system that we all rely on.”
Hinshaw said the positive indicators can be reversed in a matter of days if everyone doesn’t continue to do their part.
In Morinville, there are currently 83 active cases with 159 people having recovered. The town has seen a total of 245 cases since the beginning of the pandemic and three deaths.
Sturgeon County has 101 active cases of COVID-19 with 357 people having recovered. There have been 459 cases in the county since the pandemic began and one death.
