29 new known cases of coronavirus confirmed in Alberta as total hits 690

The Province of Alberta issued new COVID-19 numbers at a press conference on Monday.

Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw said that Alberta has seen 29 new known cases of coronavirus in the past 24 hours.

This brings the province’s known total to 690.

“While the number of confirmed cases in the last few days has been less than what we’ve seen previously, this is due to several factors,” Hinshaw said at the press conference.

“We have stopped testing returning travellers, so we knew that our daily positive numbers would go down. We have also had a decrease in the total daily tests in the lab over the past few days given some challenges with lab testing supplies. It will take us several days more of this new testing protocol to get enough data to understand our trends.”

She also noted that there have been five new deaths as of March 30, bringing Alberta’s total to 8.

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Hinshaw said 65 of Alberta’s total known cases may have been caused by community transmission.

There are also 47 cases currently in hospital, and 17 people are in the ICU.

A total of 94 Albertans have since recovered from the coronavirus.