The second wave of COVID-19 infections continues to surge across North America, and its starting to overwhelm health officials ability to trace all of the contacts of confirmed cases.

After health Toronto officials announced they were suspending some contact tracing in early October, now an entire province has suspended the practice, except in the most critical cases.

Following a record day where around 800 new cases were confirmed an inexact number due to technical difficulties Alberta s chief medical officer Dr. Deena Hinshaw announced that the province will be suspending the majority of contact tracing efforts.

Unfortunately, as cases have risen rapidly, we are experiencing challenges in our contact tracing teams. AHS does not currently have the capacity to call every contact of every case, in a timely way, Hinshaw said Thursday.