Medicine Hat has 105 active cases of COVID-19.
The city now has 276 total cases – the 105 active, 167 recovered and there have been four deaths.
There are three new cases reported in Tuesday’s update.
Across the province, there are 16,628 active cases, up 174 from Monday, and 42,305 recovered cases, up 1,123.
There are 1,307 new cases in the province today.
Alberta has had 59,484 total cases over the course of the pandemic.
There are now 479 Albertans in hospital with COVID-19, 91 of which are in ICU, and 551 deaths.
The province completed 15,816 tests in the past 24 hours.
The provincial positivity rate is about 8.4 per cent.
With Albertans starting to plan holiday gatherings, the chief medical officer of health said that in a year that is anything but typical, how we celebrate won’t be typical either.
“This will be the year for getting together remotely or having small outdoor activities where everyone can keep their distance,” Dr. Deena Hinshaw said.
She encouraged Albertans to begin preparing for a much different holiday season and think of creative ways to celebrate safely. She said this is not the year for in-person office parties, large dinners with friends and extended family and that anyone making plans it is best to assume you will still be limiting contact with anyone outside your household.
The government cabinet will make decisions later this month about what restrictions will be in place during the last week of December, Hinshaw said, noting that past holiday gatherings have led to increases in cases and outbreaks.
“Celebrating virtually, or with members of your own household, pose the least risk for spread,” she said.
“Of course the options we will have for the upcoming holidays depend on what we all do right now,” she added.
Hinshaw said the “trajectory of spread” is an important metric to consider when advice is given to cabinet when making any decisions about restrictions in the future.
She said the r-value (the number, on average, of people that one infected person will pass a virus to) needs to be “below one so we actually start decreasing the number of new cases that we have.”
The number of new daily cases is an important partner to that metric, she added.
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 105 active cases among 68,057 people puts it at a rate of 154.3.
Cypress County with a rate of 196.1 on 22 active cases and the County of Forty Mile with a rate of 294.9 on 19 active cases are also on the list.
Brooks (207.3 rate), the County of Newell (296.6), Lethbridge (212.2) Lethbridge County (265.6) and the MD of Taber (535.4) are also on the list.
All those regions are also in enhanced status.
There are 3,932 cases in the South Zone. There are 672 active cases and 3,215 recovered. The death total in the zone is at 44.
According to an AHS spokesperson, the South Zone currently has 20 COVID-19 positive patients in hospital. Medicine Hat Regional Hospital has six patients with two of those in ICU. Chinook Regional Hospital has 13, with three of those in ICU. Brooks Health Centre has one patient.
On Tuesday there are 205 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 – 22 active cases and the rest recovered.
The County of Forty Mile has 109 total cases. There are 19 active cases, 89 recovered and there has been one death.
The MD of Taber has 257 total cases — 101 active cases, 152 recovered and there have been four deaths.
Special Areas No. 2 has 23 total cases – five active and the rest recovered.
Brooks has 1,285 total cases — 40 active and 1,232 are recovered. Brooks has recorded 13 deaths.
The County of Newell has a total of 113 cases — 24 active cases, 87 recovered and there have been two deaths.
The County of Warner has 122 total cases. There are 33 active cases, 88 are recovered cases and there has been one death in the county.
The City of Lethbridge has a total of 1,025 cases. There are 210 active cases, 808 recovered and there have been seven deaths. Lethbridge County has 332 cases, 67 active cases, 263 recovered and there have been two deaths.
The figures on alberta.ca are “up-to-date as of end of day Nov. 30, 2020.”
Read the full Dec. 1 update from the province here.
Saskatchewan confirmed 181 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday, 16 in the South Zones.
Saskatchewan has a total of 8,745 cases, 3,819 considered active. There are 4,875 recovered cases and there have been 51 COVID-19 deaths in the province.
