Alberta reports 1,293 new cases of COVID-19, 876 new variant cases
Alberta's active COVID-19 cases continued to climb Saturday as the province announced its vaccine rollout will expand to more front-line health-care workers on Monday.
The province reported 1,293 new cases of COVID-19 and 876 new cases involving variants of concern. As of Saturday, there are 6,529 active variant cases, about 47.7 per cent of active cases in Alberta.
Provincial labs completed 14,371 tests for COVID-19 on Friday, with a positivity rate around 9.1 per cent.
Five new deaths were reported Saturday, bringing the total to 2,012 since the start of the pandemic.
Three of the deaths occurred in the Calgary zone, one in the South zone, and one death in the Edmonton zone was linked to an outbreak at Covenant Health St. Joseph's nursing home.
On Saturday, there were 349 people in hospital with the illness, including 84 in intensive care unit beds.
Across the province, 333 people were being treated in hospital for COVID-19 the previous day, including 83 in intensive care beds.
There are now 13,687 active cases of COVID-19 across the province, an increase of 628 active cases from Friday, which was the first time the province surpassed 13,000 since Jan.10.
As of Saturday, the regional breakdown of active cases is:
Calgary zone: 6,361
Edmonton zone: 3,320
North zone: 1,815
Central zone: 1,124
South zone: 955
Unknown: 112
Vaccine rollout expanding
On Monday, Alberta will expand its COVID-19 vaccine rollout to include nurses, doctors, dentists, and any health-care workers in patient care facilities or providing direct patient care in the community.
The rollout will make more than 240,000 health-care workers eligible to begin booking vaccine appointments as part of Phase 2C, according to a news release Saturday.
On Friday, the province reported 818,689 doses of COVID-19 vaccines had been administered, an increase of 38,872 from the day before.
In the last 24 hours, 28,941 additional doses of vaccine were administered, the province reported Saturday evening, bringing the total number to 847,630.
