Province releases new modelling on COVID-19, Lakeland cases remain the same on Tuesday

There are no new cases of COVID-19 in the Lakeland area on Tuesday, although 154 new cases were confirmed in Alberta for a total of 4,850 infections.

There remains two active cases in the St. Paul area, two active cases in the Cold Lake area, one active case in the Vermilion River County area.

Seven cases have recovered in the Bonnyville area, two cases have recovered in the Cold Lake area, and one case has recovered in the Vermilion River County area.

Just six new cases were confirmed in the North Zone, which extends just north of Edmonton to the northern provincial border, then west to east including the Lakeland.

Five new deaths were confirmed provincewide. The COVID-19 death total in Alberta is at 80.

Recoveries have increased to 1,800 people.

Eighty-two people are currently in hospital and 21 of those are in intensive care.

Just over 3,000 tests were conducted in the past 24 hours and over 138,000 tests have been done since the beginning of the outbreak.

Among workers at the Cargill meatpacking plant in High River, 759 infections have been confirmed and 249 employees or contractors of the JBS Foods plant in Brooks have been infected.

Four hundred and eighty-three residents of long-term care facilities have been infected and these infections led to 52 deaths.

Alberta updates COVID-19 modelling

Premier Jason Kenney during the daily briefing walked through updated modelling scenarios of the virus as the current number of hospitalizations and ICU admissions are well-below the projections made April 7.

“The modelling forecast shared today is good news,” said chief medical officer Dr. Deena Hinshaw.

“Alberta is starting to see the results of the collective sacrifices we have made. But I want to stress this is far from over,” said Dr. Hinshaw.

Three key things the province continues to watch are hospitalizations, ICU capacity, and the rate of growth in total cases.

The province updated the probable and elevated scenarios toward the peak of infections in May and added a low scenario which follows the numbers of Alberta’s current infections.

 

Premier Jason Kenney also said that Alberta’s Relaunch Strategy, which will see some areas of social and economic life return to some sort of normal, will be released later this week.

He did say there would be dates associated with this phased approach to re-opening and would be similar to Saskatchewan.

The federal government released general guidelines on Tuesday that provinces have agreed to when loosening restrictions.

Full updated modelling by the province.