Outdoor gathering, personal and wellness service restrictions eased, five new COVID-19 cases in Medicine Hat

“Indoor social gatherings, let me be clear, are still not allowed,” he said.

Personal and wellness services can also reopen as of Jan. 18, but by appointment only.

“These services include things like hair salons, barbershops, aesthetics, manicure and pedicure businesses, reflexology, piercing and tattoo shops and other of our many different personal and wellness services businesses throughout the province,” said Health Minister Tyler Shandro.

He said appointments should be limited to one-on-one services and businesses and clients are expected to keep following the public health guidelines.

The limit on attendance at funerals is being raised to 20 people. Funeral receptions are still prohibited.

Shandro said the decisions to ease restrictions were made carefully and based on the expertise of the chief medical officer of health.

“We want to stop as a province going back and forth with tightening and then loosening the rules,” he said.

“As of right now we can’t say when measures will be eased next. But we are monitoring the situation closely and we are meeting regularly with Dr. Hinshaw,” he added.

If case rates and hospitalizations continue to go down more restrictions will be eased said Shandro.

There are 38 active cases of COVID-19 in Medicine Hat on Thursday.

The city now has had 507 total cases – the 38 active, 458 recovered and there have been 11 deaths, one new today.

There are five new cases in the city in Thursday’s update and one recovery.

Across the province, there are 12,434 active cases, down 404 from Wednesday, and 100,762 recovered cases, up 1,350.

Alberta’s total number of COVID-19 cases from the start of the pandemic is 114,585.

There are 967 new cases in the province today.

There are now 806 Albertans in hospital with COVID-19, 136 of which are in ICU, and 1,389 deaths.

The province completed 16,219 tests in the past 24 hours.

The provincial positivity rate is 5.8 per cent.

As of Jan. 12, 66,953 doses of vaccine have been administered in Alberta.

Recently discovered variants of the virus require a cautious approach, he said, because cases have escalated in other countries due to the variants.

The health minister also said that while they are looking at what restrictions can be eased everyone needs to stay within the rules, including mandatory masking in public indoor spaces and working from home where possible.

“Don’t bend the rules to fit you. They’re not designed to be flexible,” Shandro said.

Hinshaw said that although there has been a small decline in case rates and measures are being relaxed she stressed the situation remains serious.

“Our numbers remain high and our health system is still under significant strain.”

The chief medical officer of health said there are available bookings for eligible health-care workers for this weekend and urged them to book as soon as possible.

Hinshaw also said new terminology for reporting cases in schools will come into effect on Jan. 18 to make it easier to understand.

Categories with specific number ranges will be used, she said. An alert will apply to schools with one to four cases and schools with two or more cases will still be included on the public map. Outbreaks will be split into categories of “five to nine cases” and “10 or more cases.”

Hinshaw’s next in-person update will be on Monday.

Medicine Hat and the entire province remains in enhanced status, in which risk levels require enhanced public health measures to control the spread and are informed by local context.

Medicine Hat remains on the provincial “Watch” list.

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 38 active cases among 68,057 people puts it at a rate of 55.8.

Brooks (72.6 rate), The County of Newell (86.5), Lethbridge (124.3) Lethbridge County (138.7) and the MD of Taber (53) are also on the list.

Cypress County and the County of Forty Mile are no longer on the “Watch” list.

There are 5,399 cases in the South Zone. There are 362 active cases and 4,971 recovered. The death total in the zone is at 66.

An AHS spokesperson told CHAT News AHS South Zone currently has 26 COVID-19 positive individuals in hospital. There are eight at Medicine Hat Regional Hospital, with three of those in the ICU. Chinook Regional Hospital in Lethbridge has 18 inpatients, with three of those in the ICU.

School outbreaks will begin to be reported again this week following the return to in-person classes on Monday.

The website Support Our Students is tracking instances of cases in schools across the province.

Cypress County has totaled 144 cases – three active cases and the rest recovered.

The County of Forty Mile has 116 total cases. There are three active cases, 111 recovered and there have been two deaths.

The MD of Taber has 322 total cases — 10 active cases, 306 recovered and there have been six deaths.

Special Areas No. 2 has 40 total cases – five active, 34 recovered and there has been one death.

Brooks has 1,358 total cases — 14 active and 1,330 are recovered. Brooks has recorded 14 deaths.

The County of Newell has a total of 146 cases — seven active cases, 137 recovered and there have been two deaths.

The County of Warner has 152 total cases. There are nine active cases, 141 are recovered cases and there have been two deaths in the county.

The City of Lethbridge has a total of 1,542 cases. There are 123 active cases, 1,409 recovered and there have been 10 deaths. Lethbridge County has 471 cases, 35 active cases, 429 recovered and there have been seven deaths.

The figures on alberta.ca are “up-to-date as of end of day Jan. 13, 2021.”

Read the full Jan. 14 update from the province here.

Saskatchewan confirmed 213 new cases of COVID-19 in the Thursday update.

Saskatchewan has a total of 19,329 cases, 3,859 considered active. There are 15,264 recovered cases and there have been 206 COVID-19 deaths in the province.

Saskatchewan has delivered 11,985 doses of vaccine.

by Chris Brown

Outdoor gathering, personal and wellness service restrictions eased, five new COVID-19 cases in Medicine Hat

Our Community