What you need to know about COVID-19 in Alberta on Thursday, April 23

The latest:

• The Stampede announced it would cancel its annual event for the first time in almost a century.
• The Calgary Folk Fest also announcedit would be cancelled this year.
• Two more people in Alberta have died from COVID-19. One was a worker at the JBS plant in Brooks, while the other is related to a secondary spread linked to that outbreak.
• 10 people are dead at a northern Alberta seniors' residence.
• Union is calling for Calgary chicken plant to close after a worker tests positive.
• Calgary-based trucking firm Mullen Group lays off 1,000 workers.
• An order to limit health-care workers to one long-term care site has been put on hold.
• WestJet will lay off a further 3,000 workers in early May.
• Calls to Calgary police have dropped since the pandemic struck Alberta.

What you need to know today in Alberta:

Alberta will soon roll out a newcontact-tracing app that people will be able to download to their cellphones, the province's Chief Medical Officer of Health said at a news conference on Thursday.

The app uses Bluetooth to note if you came into contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19, Hinshaw said, but does not track Albertans' geographic locations.

In long-term care homes, an order to restrict workers to one site has been delayed after the United Nurses of Alberta filed a grievance alleging Alberta Health Services provided no direction on how to comply with the order.

And more and more large events have now been called off for the summer, includingthe Calgary Stampede and the Calgary Folk Fest.

The regional breakdown of cases as of Thursday afternoon was:

• Calgaryzone:2,633.
• Edmontonzone: 454.
• Southzone: 373.
• Northzone: 154.
• Centralzone: 80.
• Unknownzone: 23.

The Calgary zone has been hardest hit, with about 71per cent of the province's cases reported there.

What you need to know today in Canada:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a $1.1-billionstrategy for medical research to fight COVID-19 on Thursday as the number of deaths climbed past 2,000 and cases topped40,000.

Despite those figures, not all areas have seen the same rates of infection.Some provinces, including Saskatchewan, are cautiously starting to think about easing some restrictions next month.

Experts warn that this presents challenges between provinces because there are no borders and co-ordination will be needed.

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As of 7p.m. ET Thursday, there were 2,232COVID-19-related deaths in Canada, plus two reported COVID-19-linked deaths of Canadians abroad, according to aCBC News tallybased on provincial and local health data, as well as CBC reporting.

There are 42,110 confirmed and presumptive cases, and 14,774resolved cases among the provinces and territories that make such data public.

Self-assessment and supports:

Alberta Health Services has an online self-assessment tool that you can use to determine if you have symptoms of COVID-19.

The province says Albertans who have returned to Canada from other countries must self-isolate. Unless your situation is critical and requires a call to 911, Albertans are advised to call Health Link at 811 before visiting a physician, hospital or other health-care facility.

If you have symptoms, even mild, you are to self-isolate for 10 days from the onset of symptoms.

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You can find Alberta Health Services' latest coronavirus updates here.

The province also operates a confidential mental health support line at 1-877-303-2642 and addiction help line at 1-866-332-2322, available from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., seven days a week.

Online resources are available for advice on handling stressful situations and ways to talk with children.

There is a 24-hour family violence information line at 310-1818 to get anonymous help in more than 170 languages, and Alberta's One Line for Sexual Violence is available at 1-866-403-8000, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.