Alberta reports 1,667 new COVID-19 cases as province moves to lift restrictions
Alberta reported 1,667 new lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday, putting the number of active infections in the province at 28,265. This is a decrease of 1,829 active cases since Monday’s count.
There are 1,623 people in hospital with COVID-19, an increase of 81 since yesterday. This includes 129 people in intensive care, which is 11 more than Monday’s ICU count of 118.
Of those in hospital, 25.39% have had three doses of vaccine, 39.56% have had two doses, and 4.93% have had one dose. Unvaccinated individuals make up 30.13% of COVID-19 hospitalizations.
As of February 7, 89.9% of Alberta’s eligible population over the age of 12 have had at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 86.3% are fully vaccinated. 180,764 children aged five to 11 have received at least one dose of pediatric vaccine.
A total of 8,384,070 doses of vaccine have been administered in the province.
Including today’s new cases, there have been a total of 509,718 confirmed COVID-19 infections in Alberta over the course of the pandemic, with 477,767 cases now recovered.
Over the past 24 hours, 13 new deaths caused by the virus have been reported, raising Alberta’s COVID-19 death toll to 3,686.
During a Tuesday evening press conference, Premier Jason Kenney, along with Alberta Health Minister Jason Copping and Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw, announced that the province would introduce a three-step plan to begin the “return to normal.”
“It is clear we passed the peak of Omicron infections,” said Kenney, pointing to various countries lifting all or almost lifting all public health restrictions over the past weeks.
“We see new COVID hospital admissions coming down, another important indicator,” he added.
Effective at 11:59 pm on February 8, the Restrictions Exemption Program (REP) will be lifted. Alberta’s version of a vaccine passport, the REP was first brought into the province during the Delta variant wave in the fall.
Learn more about the steps to lift COVID-19 restrictions on the Government of Alberta website.
“The threat of COVID-19 to public health no longer outweighs the damages of restrictions to our broader social health,” said Kenney. “Now is the time to start learning to live with COVID. Alberta will move on, but we’ll do so carefully.”
With files from Laine Mitchell
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