Lakeland COVID update: 8 new cases in County of St. Paul

On Monday, there are now 157 active cases of COVID-19 within the St. Paul-Saddle Lake area under “local geographic area” on the province’s virus data map. There are 28 active cases on Saddle Lake First Nation in their last update on Sunday evening, with two active cases in hospital.

When searched by municipality on the Alberta map, there are 153 active cases within the County of St. Paul.

In the “local geographic area” of Bonnyville, there are 34 active cases of the virus. When searched by municipality, there are 52 active cases within the M.D. of Bonnyville.

In the Cold Lake “local geographic area” there are 51 active cases, within the city there are 48 active cases. Two cases are listed as active on Cold Lake First Nations.

In the Lac La Biche “local geographic area” there are 70 active cases. A death has been listed in the area since Thursday, leaving two total within the past few weeks. The active cases are the same within the municipality.

A death has been listed in the Smoky Lake area as well over recent days. There are now 36 active cases within the “local geographic area” In Smoky Lake County, there are 94 active cases.

On Sunday, Frog Lake First Nations reported that 29 cases were active in the community. In the “local geographic area” of the reserve, there are 73 active cases.

In Two Hills County, there are 49 active cases with no difference on the provincial map between municipality and local geographic area.

In Vermilion’s “local geographic area” there are 79 cases active. When searched by municipality, there are 59 active.

Vaccine update

Alberta will soon be receiving 25,350 doses of the Pfizer vaccine and will start immunizing priority health-care workers provincewide this week.

Right now, the Pfizer vaccine must be administered at its delivery site, so these doses will be provided to respiratory therapists, intensive care unit physicians and staff, and eligible long-term care and designated supportive living workers across the province.

These are in addition to the 3,900 doses that are expected to arrive this week and will begin to be administered in Calgary and Edmonton within days of delivery.

Pending final approval from Health Canada, the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine is expected to arrive in Alberta later in December.

Provincial update

On Monday, chief medical officer Dr. Deena Hinshaw reported 1,887 new cases of the virus.

There are 716 people in hospital and 136 people in intensive care units.

Dr. Hinshaw revealed that the province’s R value of the past week–a metric used to determine the likelihood an infected person could infect another–was 0.98 for the province.

If the R-value is 1, an individual has infected 1 person, on average, and if it is above 1, then spread grows.

Fifteen more deaths raise the provincial death toll to 733.