Skip to content

Airdrie remains at 102 active COVID-19 cases, as COVID-19 variant cases continue to be identified in Alberta

As cases around the province have continued to drop with restrictions still in place, Airdrie has reported 102 active cases of COVID-19.
COVID-19

As cases around Alberta have continued to drop, Airdrie has remained at 102 active cases of COVID-19.

According to airdrie.ca, there have been a total of 1,739 cases in Airdrie. Of those, 1,622 people have recovered and 16 deaths have been reported. 

George McDougall High School remains listed on the provincial COVID-19 school status map after an outbreak there was reported on Jan. 15. On the east side of the city, Bert Church High School has been added to the list under "alert" status, meaning two to four cases have been reported there since in-class learning resumed. St. Veronica School has also been listed under "alert" status.

Elsewhere in Airdrie, the Bethany Care Centre remains the sole local facility on the government's list of COVID-19 outbreaks. According to the retirement home's daily bulletin, one resident and six employees were confirmed to still have the virus as of Jan. 25.

Outside of the city, Rocky View County (RVC) is reporting 64 active cases, which is a decrease of three from from the day previous. On the east side of the county, Chestermere is now at 51 active cases. Out west, Cochrane has remained at 26 active cases.

Two Chestermere schools have been added to the COVID-19 school status map; Chestermere Lake Middle School and Prairie Waters Elementary School have both been listed under "alert" status, reporting at least two to four active cases. 

Provincially, there have been a total of 121,535 cases of COVID-19 in Alberta as of Jan. 25. Of the total cases, 9,337 are considered active, 110,622 people have recovered, 637 patients are in hospital and 113 Albertans are in intensive care units. In total, 1,574 deaths have been reported in the province due to the virus.

As of Jan. 25, 99,453 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in Alberta. This equates to 2,249.1 doses per 100,000 population. To date, 9,876 Albertans have been fully immunized with both doses of a vaccine. Twenty-six adverse events following immunization have been reported to Alberta Health and Alberta Health Services.

Also as of Jan. 25, Alberta has detected 20 cases of the COVID-19 variant first identified in the United Kingdom and five cases of the variant first identified in South Africa.

Dr. Deena Hinsahw said during her Jan. 25 update the emergence of more infectious variants of concern is an issue that requires close attention.

"Unfortunately, over the weekend, as you heard, we identified our first case of the variant that has no currently known link to travel," she said. "This was the only non-travel variant case identified in the over 1,000 samples screened last week by the lab."

Hinshaw said while officials continue to investigate this case to see if contacts can be identified who may have had a travel exposure, this is a potentially concerning development.

"It underlines the importance of the work that our lab has been doing to expand their capacity to screen positive cases for genetic mutations of concern," she said. "They are rapidly expanding this capacity so that we can ensure that we will detect variants of concern if they are spreading in the province."

While there is no evidence the virus variants have an impact on the effectiveness of current vaccines, a post on MayoClinic.org stated early research suggests the variants spread more easily and rapidly among people.

"There is no evidence that these COVID-19 variants cause more severe illness with COVID-19 or an increased risk of death due to COVID-19," the post stated. "Further research is needed. In the meantime, keep following precautions for avoiding infection with the COVID-19 virus."

push icon
Be the first to read breaking stories. Enable push notifications on your device. Disable anytime.
No thanks