Medicine Hat has 109 active cases of COVID-19.
The city now has 273 total cases – the 109 active, 160 recovered and there have been four deaths.
There are 10 new cases reported in Monday’s update.
Across the province, there are 16,454 active cases, up 756 from Sunday, and 41,182 recovered cases, up 963.
There are 1,733 new cases in the province today.
Alberta has had 58,177 total cases over the course of the pandemic.
There are now 453 Albertans in hospital with COVID-19, 96 of which are in ICU, and 541 deaths.
The province completed 20,499 tests in the past 24 hours.
The provincial positivity rate is about 8.4 per cent.
“Like all Albertans, I am alarmed by the rising case numbers reported today and over the weekend,” said chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw.
She said she expects that cases and hospitalizations will continue to rise over the next several days due to the 10- to 14-day incubation period of the virus. But that doesn’t have to be the case as we get closer to Christmas.
“The actions we all take this week will help shape how the virus is spreading in the lead up to the holidays,” Hinshaw said.
She said the curve must be bent and the number of active cases lowered now to protect each other and the health system.
“The more we can support each other to keep going, while acknowledging the difficulty of these days, the better off we will all be,” she said.
Hinshaw said there’s no silver bullet for COVID-19 but different measures – physical distancing, wearing masks and proper hand hygiene – help and will need to be continued for months to come.
“I need every Albertan to focus on how they can change their lives right now to protect their communities,” Hinshaw said.
She said long-term health impacts remain unknown, that she has heard directly from people who are facing lasting effects and those who have had the virus are suffering from a range of long-term effects.
Medicine Hat remains on the provincial “Watch” list and is in enhanced status. In enhanced status, risk levels require enhanced public health measures to control the spread and are informed by local context.
Regions are placed on the province’s “Watch” list when they have a rate of more than 50 active cases per 100,000 population. Medicine Hat’s 109 active cases among 68,057 people puts it at a rate of 160.2.
Cypress County with a rate of 213.9 on 24 active cases and the County of Forty Mile with a rate of 341.4 on 22 active cases are also on the list.
Brooks (222.8 rate), the County of Newell (259.5), Lethbridge (208.1) Lethbridge County (297.3) and the MD of Taber (530.1) are also on the list.
All those regions are also in enhanced status.
There are 3,890 cases in the South Zone. There are 693 active cases and 3,153 recovered. There are currently 17 COVID-19 cases in hospital in the South Zone, five in the ICU. The death total in the zone is at 44.
As of Friday, Medicine Hat Regional Hospital has five COVID-19 patients with two of those in ICU. Chinook Regional Hospital has 14, with three of those in ICU. Brooks Health Centre has two patients.
On Monday there are 202 schools in the province where outbreaks have been declared. Alberta Health’s threshold for declaring an outbreak in school is two cases being in a school while infectious within 14 days.
In the city, Medicine Hat High School and Prairie Mennonite Alternative School are listed as having outbreaks.
Two cases were revealed at Dr. Roy Wilson Learning Centre on the weekend and one at Crescent Heights High School.
Eastbrook Elementary School in Brooks is no longer on the school “Watch” list while the Brooks Junior High School has come off the outbreak list.
The website Support Our Students is tracking instances of cases in schools across the province.
Cypress County has totaled 116 cases – 24 active cases and the rest recovered.
The County of Forty Mile has 107 total cases. There are 22 active cases, 80 recovered and there has been one death.
The MD of Taber has 251 total cases — 100 active cases, 147 recovered and there have been four deaths.
Special Areas No. 2 has 20 total cases – three active and the rest recovered.
Brooks has 1,283 total cases — 43 active and 1,227 are recovered. Brooks has recorded 13 deaths.
The County of Newell has a total of 109 cases — 21 active cases, 86 recovered and there have been two deaths.
The County of Warner has 121 total cases. There are 38 active cases, 82 are recovered cases and there has been one death in the county.
The City of Lethbridge has a total of 1,009 cases. There are 206 active cases, 796 recovered and there have been seven deaths. Lethbridge County has 329 cases, 75 active cases, 252 recovered and there have been two deaths.
The figures on alberta.ca are “up-to-date as of end of day Nov. 29, 2020.”
Read the full Nov. 30 update from the province here.
Saskatchewan confirmed 867 new cases of COVID-19 since Friday, 123 in the South Zones.
Saskatchewan has a total of 8,564 cases, 3,879 considered active. There are 4,638 recovered cases and there have been 47 COVID-19 deaths in the province.
