Alberta records two more COVID-19 deaths, 29 new cases

Alberta reported two more deaths from COVID-19 on Thursday and 29 new cases of the illness.

There were 652 active cases in the province, down from 679 the day before.

The two most recent deaths were a woman in her 100s who was a resident of Intercare Chinook Care Centre in Calgary and a woman in her 80s who was a resident at Agecare Sunrise Gardens retirement community in Brooks.

That brings the total number of deaths in the province to 143.

Fifty people werebeing treated for the illness in Alberta hospitals, four of them in ICU beds.

Children's Services Minister Rebecca Schulzannounced on Twitter that Alberta pre-schools can begin reopening on Monday.

"The last few months have been hard on working parents me included!" Schulz wrote in a tweet on Thursday. "So I'm thrilled to announce that preschools across Alberta can begin to safely reopen on June 1."

The minister said guidelines for preschools were developed with the chief medical officer of healthand will be more stringent than before.

"But preschools will be able to operate over the summer," she wrote, "providing a part-time child care option that will also nurture those tiny brains!"

The regional breakdown of COVID-19 cases on Thursday was:

• Calgary Zone, 518 active cases;
• South Zone, 55 active cases;
• Edmonton Zone, 53 active cases;
• North Zone, 22 active cases;
• Central Zone, two active cases.

The health zones for two other active cases were listed as unknown.

The number of recovered cases has now reached 6,160.

Laboratories across the province have completed249,705 testsas of Thursday's update. In the previous 24 hours,3,756 tests were completed.