Alberta reported 273 new COVID-19 cases Monday as Dr. Deena Hinshaw urged residents to keep their efforts up to bring new infections down even lower.

She praised Albertans’ efforts thus far, but pointed to a plateau in numbers and steady numbers of new variant cases as reasons to still be careful.

“These trends are the result of our willingness to put our community’s needs first,” she said. “Cases in the province will rise or fall based on the actions each of us takes in the days and weeks ahead.”

She added the province will not announce a decision on lifting more restrictions until March 1 at the earliest.

There are now 324 people in hospital around the province, including 53 in intensive care.

Another 16 Albertans died of the virus in the last 24 hours. Alberta has recorded 1,843 deaths from COVID-19 so far.

About 69,000 Albertans have been fully immunized against COVID-19.

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Hinshaw shared some charts Monday to illustrate some encouraging trends in the province.

Alberta saw a 92% decline in long-term care COVID-19 cases in two months as many of these residents got vaccinated against the virus.

Dr. Deena Hinshaw

Hinshaw also pointed to data on school-aged cases that suggests students returning to class in January was not a major driver of new infections. According to provincial data, COVID-19 infections in school-aged children declined 63% since schools went back to in-person learning.

She suggested that decrease was tied to reduced community transmission.

“This is the power of our actions together.”

Dr. Deena Hinshaw