Alberta reports over 500 new cases of Omicron as COVID-19 infections rise

Alberta health officials reported 1,346 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, 522 of which were identified as the Omicron variant.

This raises the total number of Omicron infections found in the province to 2,131, including 1,298 cases in Calgary and 724 in Edmonton.

Including today’s new infections, there are a total of 7,065 active cases of COVID-19 in Alberta. The province’s testing positivity rate was just over 11.5% on December 22.

There have been five additional deaths caused by the virus reported since Tuesday, bringing Alberta’s COVID-19 death toll to 3,299.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Alberta has seen a total of 345,080 confirmed cases of COVID-19, and 334,716 have since recovered.

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Currently, there are 326 people in hospital with the virus, a decrease of three people from the previous day. Of those in hospital, 65 are in intensive care with COVID-19.

Unvaccinated individuals make up 60.74% of COVID-19 hospitalizations, while 3.68% are partially vaccinated and 35.58% are fully vaccinated.

As of December 21, there have been 7,400,284 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine administered in the province. Of the province’s eligible population, 89.1% have had at least one shot, while 85% have had two.