Alberta reports 48 new COVID-19 cases, no additional deaths

Alberta reported 48 new cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, but no additional deaths.

Provincial labs conducted almost 7,000 tests over the past 24 hours, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta's chief medical officer of health, said at a news conference.

The number of active cases of COVID-19 has been inching up in the Edmonton zone for several days, and may soon pass those reported in Calgary for the first time.

On Wednesday, the Edmonton zone had 201active cases, while the Calgary zone had 224.

The other three zones in the province, South, North and Central, had a total of 60.

Public health officials are closely watching three small outbreaks in Edmonton:

• Capital Care Grandview, twocases.
• Miller Crossing Care Centre, four cases.
• Good Samaritan Westpark Group Home, five cases.

"This highlights the importance of all of us not being lulled into a false sense of security when we see low numbers in our community, and thinking that we can start to move away from the regular public health measures," Hinshaw said of those outbreaks.

"We do need to make sure that we are supporting each other, to stay home when sick, to get tested, and to make sure that all of the contact tracing and the work that public health does is supported, because those are the measures that are going to help our cases contained."

The151 people who have died from COVID-19 in the province ranged in age from 27 to 105, she said, and while most had two or more underlying health conditions, some had none.

Hinshaw provided her latestupdate on COVID-19 on Wednesday at a news conference at 3:30 p.m.

She said even with the low case numbers, she continues to advise people to plan to take their summer vacations within the province.

In total, 6,893Albertans have recovered from COVID-19.

Labs across the province have performed 356,818tests.

Alberta's state of public health emergency, which had been in place since early March, lapsed on Monday. Last week theprovince moved into Stage 2 of its relaunch plan, allowing more businesses to reopen, though all public health orders remain in place.