Here’s Alberta’s three-stage plan to restart the province

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney outlined the province’s strategy for reopening this summer during a Wednesday morning press conference.

Kenney was joined by Health Minister Tyler Shandro and Minister of Jobs, Economy and Innovation Doug Schweitzer to provide an update on COVID-19 and Alberta’s strategy for safely easing restrictions.

The province will be putting a three-stage plan into place for reopening and easing restrictions across Alberta, which could begin as early as May 28. The “Open for Summer” plan will use a combination of hospitalization and vaccination benchmarks.

Stage 1 will begin two weeks after 50% of eligible Albertans aged 12 and older have received at least one dose of vaccine and COVID-19 hospitalizations are below 800 and declining.

Stage 2 starts two weeks after 60% of eligible Albertans aged 12 and older have received at least one dose of vaccine and COVID-19 hospitalizations are below 500 and declining.

The province will move into Stage 3 two weeks after 70% of Albertans aged 12 and older have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

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Premier Kenney shared a graphic on Twitter outlining the restrictions that will be lifted under each stage of the Open for Summer plan.

Here is Alberta’s #OpenForSummer Plan!

Albertans have stopped the spike and now we can start safely lifting restrictions so we can have a truly great Alberta summer.

If we stay on track with vaccines and hospitalizations, Alberta will be fully open by July! (1/2) pic.twitter.com/j5Bx1ODt3I

— Jason Kenney (@jkenney) May 26, 2021

Also under Stage 1, beginning on May 28, capacity limits for worship services will increase to 15% of fire code occupancy.

This announcement comes after the province put enhanced public health measures in place on May 4. This included moving students to online learning and further restrictions for outdoor social gatherings, sports, performance and recreation, retail, restaurants, places of worship, indoor fitness, post-secondary institutions, and more.

On Tuesday, Alberta reported 387 new COVID-19 cases, the lowest number of infections found in one day since mid-March. The province’s daily case counts and active infections have been trending downward since early last week.