By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

friday update

Alberta Health reports zero COVID-19 deaths, increase in hospitalizations

Mar 19, 2021 | 4:05 PM

Alberta did not add to its death toll Friday, as the province had zero COVID-19-linked deaths reported to it in the last 24 hours.

The death toll since last March remains at 1,957. It’s grown to that total from 1,818 since Feb. 20.

Meantime, Alberta added 696 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday, bringing the to-date total to 140,823.

The one-day total is out of 11,918 test results for a positivity rate of ~5.8 per cent, up 1.2 percentage points from yesterday.

The number of active cases in the province is 5,429, an increase of 345. Recoveries are up 351 to 133,347.

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There are now 276 Albertans in hospital due to COVID-19, up 12, including 48 in intensive care, up five.

As of Friday, there have been 1,318 total variant cases of COVID-19 in the province, an increase of 130 over the past day, including 1,298 cases of the UK variant, 129 more than yesterday. One additional case of the South African variant has been discovered, for a total of 18. There are two cases of the Brazilian variant, unchanged from last weekend. There have been 217 variant cases in Central Zone, all of the UK version, and up 12 from Thursday.

In a letter to families on Friday, Red Deer’s Lindsay Thurber Comprehensive High School confirmed that one member of the school community has been identified as having a variant of concern.

Alberta has administered 439,069 doses of COVID-19 vaccine as of March 12. A total of 92,935 Albertans have received two doses.

Locally, the number of active cases in Red Deer now sits at 106, an increase of five over the past 24 hours.

There have now been 2,801 recoveries, an increase of eight as the total number of cases attributed to Red Deer rose by 13 to 2,940.

Active cases across Central Zone as of Friday

Red Deer County: 16 (+3)

Sylvan Lake: 17 (+2)

Lacombe County: 36 (+3)

City of Lacombe: 40 (+8)

Ponoka County: 101 (+11)

Clearwater County: 29 (-3)

Brazeau County: 6 (+1)

Mountain View County: 12 (-2)

Olds: 8 (-1)

Kneehill County: 4 (+1)

County of Stettler: 6 (–)

The Central Zone has 526 active cases, up 51 from Thursday. The zone has 30 people in hospital, and six in ICU at Red Deer Regional, each the same as yesterday. The zone has had 120 deaths.

Dr. Deena Hinshaw will provide her next live update on Mar. 22.