Alberta with fewest active COVID-19 infections since March 30, 88 per cent recovered

Alberta now has the smallest number of active COVID-19 infections since March 30 with 679 cases, said chief medical officer Dr. Deena Hinshaw on Wednesday.

Recoveries continue to outpace new confirmed cases of the virus, as 88 per cent of individuals who’ve had COVID-19 have resolved symptoms.

Fourteen cases have recovered in the Bonnyville, St. Paul, and Cold Lake areas with the last recovery on May 12 and the last active reported case confirmed on April 30.

Twenty-five new positive tests were confirmed on Wednesday after 3,168 test results were processed in the past day.

Forty-three Albertans are in hospital and four of those are in intensive care.

Two additional deaths occurred since Tuesday, bringing the COVID-19 death toll in the province to 141.

Dr. Hinshaw said that COVID-19 deaths are one-and-a-half times higher than the highest annual influenza rate in the past five years.

Also, she said that one case of Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C), a syndrome that affects children and adolescents which has been linked to COVID-19, is being investigated in the province.

In trends in the United States and elsewhere, confirmed cases of MIS-C developed weeks to a month after their novel coronavirus infection, she said.

MIS-C is a condition where different body parts can become inflamed, including the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin, eyes, or gastrointestinal organs and can be deadly in the worst outcomes.