By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

friday update

Red Deer up to 178 active cases of COVID-19

Mar 26, 2021 | 4:09 PM

Alberta added three to its death toll Friday, giving the province a total of 1,979 since the pandemic began in March 2020.

That’s also an increase of 22 in the last week. The three most recent occurred between March 24-25, with one each in North Zone (female in her 50s), Calgary Zone (male in his 70s) and Edmonton Zone (male in his 80s).

Meantime, Alberta added 717 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday, bringing the to-date total to 145,028.

The one-day total is out of 13,308 test results for a positivity rate of ~5.4 per cent, about the same as yesterday.

The number of active cases in the province is 7,077, an increase of 242. Recoveries are up 472 to 135,972.

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There are now 284 Albertans in hospital due to COVID-19, down ten, including 59 in intensive care, up four.

As of Friday, there have been 2,626 variant cases of COVID-19 in the province, an increase of 325 over the past day, including 2,601 cases of the UK variant. There have been 384 variant cases in Central Zone, all of the UK version, up 41 from Thursday.

Alberta has administered 558,763 doses of COVID-19 vaccine as of March 25. A total of 94,947 Albertans have received two doses.

Locally, the number of active cases in Red Deer now sits at 178, an increase of six over the past 24 hours.

There have now been 2,845 recoveries, an increase of eight as the total number of cases attributed to Red Deer rose by 14 to 3,057.

Active cases across Central Zone as of Friday

Red Deer County: 24 (+5)

Sylvan Lake: 29 (+5)

Lacombe County: 44 (–)

City of Lacombe: 43 (+2)

Ponoka County: 115 (+9)

Clearwater County: 14 (–)

Brazeau County: 13 (-1)

Mountain View County: 9 (–)

Olds: 14 (+3)

Kneehill County: 6 (+2)

County of Stettler: 10 (+1)

The Central Zone has 654 active cases, up 43 from Thursday. The zone has 35 people in hospital, and five in the ICU at Red Deer Regional, each the same as yesterday. The zone has had 122 deaths, none of which reported.

Dr. Deena Hinshaw will provide her next live update on Mar. 30.