A trend of dropping active COVID-19 cases continued in Airdrie Feb. 3, as 11 recoveries were reported, bringing Airdrie's active case count to 58.
According to airdrie.ca, more than 10 months since COVID-19 arrived in Airdrie, there have been a total of 1,764 cases locally. As of Feb. 3, 1,678 Airdronians had recovered from the virus and 17 deaths have been reported.
There are currently four Airdrie schools with virus outbreaks, after École francophone d'Airdrie was added to the Alberta government's COVID-19 school status map earlier this week. George McDougall High School remains under "outbreak" status, meaning the school currently has 10 or more active cases. On the east side of the city, Bert Church High School is listed under "alert" status, meaning two to four cases have been reported there since in-class learning resumed in early January. St. Veronica School and École francophone d'Airdrie are also listed under "alert" status.
Elsewhere in Airdrie, the Bethany Care Centre remains the sole local local facility on the government's list of COVID-19 outbreaks. According to the retirement home's daily bulletin, one employee is confirmed to still have the virus as of Feb. 3.
Outside of the city, Rocky View County has 35 active cases as of Feb. 3, down seven from the day previous. Outbreaks are currently reported at three facilities in Balzac, including the Harmony Beef meat processing plant, the Wal-Mart logistics centre and the Amazon Fulfilment Centre.
On the east side of the county, Chestermere is now at 44 active cases, while out west, Cochrane is reporting 11 cases.
Some Chestermere schools continue to be impacted by the virus. Prairie Waters Elementary School is listed under "alert" status on the government's COVID-19 school status map, while Chestermere High School and Chestermere Lake Middle School have been listed under "outbreak" status, with each reporting five to nine cases of COVID-19.
Provincially, 259 new cases of COVID-19 were identified on Feb. 3 – the second day in a row Alberta recorded fewer than 300 new cases. The new cases mean there have been a total of 125,090 cases province-wide since the pandemic began. Of the total cases, 6,599 are active, 116,820 people have recovered, 539 patients are in hospital and 94 Albertans are in intensive care units. In total, 1,671 deaths have been reported in the province due to the virus, including 11 new deaths reported on Feb. 3.
As of Feb. 2, 109,341 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in Alberta. To date, 18,790 Albertans have been fully immunized with two doses of a vaccine. Fifty-three adverse events following immunization have been reported to Alberta Health and Alberta Health Services (AHS).
During Dr. Deenna Hinshaw's daily update on Feb. 3, she praised Albertans for the work done to bend the curve in recent monnths, as restrictions are set to ease Feb 8.
"We have bent the curve and every Albertan can be proud of that," she said. "At the same time, it is important that Albertans understand we are at a very different place than we were at in May. Our caseload is higher, our hospitalizations are higher and the emergence of new variants poses a threat that could cause cases to spike again if we are not careful. That is why we are not relaxing measures for a large number of sectors all at once, like we did in the spring.
"It’s important that we take a slow, phased approach to ensure we aren’t doing too much too fast, especially as we learn more about the new variants of COVID-19 and work to prevent their spread in Alberta," Hinshaw added. "By also closely watching our leading indicators of positivity rate, new case numbers, and growth rate we will be able to see if the tide is turning and if we need to pause moving to the next step."
