By Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

AUG. 27 UPDATE

Hinshaw talks school re-entry as active cases drop slightly

Aug 27, 2020 | 4:15 PM

The overall number of active COVID-19 cases went down in Alberta on Thursday.

The province is now reporting 1,158 active cases, a decline of 18 from a day ago. However, Alberta Health did confirm 108 new cases taking the province to 13,318.

Recoveries total 11,923. There were also two new deaths to bring that total to 237.

In hospital there are 49 Albertans, with seven in intensive care.

There have been 922,397 tests completed on 736,405 Albertans.

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As for Central Zone, there are now 25 active cases, down from 27. There are six active cases in Red Deer, down from eight, including three in the east and three in the southwest parts of the city.

Seventy-one people in Red Deer have recovered, and 542 have recovered in the zone.

“I believe this is the right first step,” said Dr. Deena Hinshaw when asked of her confidence about getting students back to school safely as day one looms next week.

“There’s no one perfect way to go back to school. I am convinced that it is critical to help get our students back in school in person, while balancing the risks of COVID and all the other things our children face; the risk of not being in school, for example.”

Hinshaw added that it is critical to watch and evaluate the impact of doing that, while acknowledging that it’s entirely possible a school could be closed if there is spread.

She said while it is natural to be nervous, anxious and excited about return to school, health officials will be monitoring the situation “very closely.”

“There are hundreds of schools across the province. If there’s something we need to do to adjust, that’s something again that will be part of our evaluating, monitoring and feedback process,” she said. “A single outbreak in a school or a single school needing to be closed wouldn’t invalidate this first step. It’s simply part of the process we’re undertaking.”

An outbreak, she noted, will be declared when two or more students and/or staff have been confirmed to have COVID from a single school setting.

Meantime, there will be focus on confirmed cases and who was a close contact of that person. A close contact is defined as someone who has been within two metres of someone for more than 15 cumulative minutes in a day.

Hinshaw noted that wearing a non-medical mask would not exclude someone from being categorized as a close contact.

She added that Alberta Health is not pre-determining specific triggers for school closure. All parents and families, she stated, are urged to read their school division’s individual back to school plan.

Hinshaw was also asked about sports cohorts, and said while there are no limits currently in place, parents are asked to keep the number of cohorts (i.e. hockey and swimming lessons) their children are a part of to a minimum.