By Troy Gillard

local numbers now updated

Record daily number of COVID-19 cases in Alberta

Dec 14, 2020 | 1:06 PM

The province’s chief medical officer of health announced 1,887 new cases of COVID-19 were identified in Alberta over the past 24 hours, a new daily record.

That’s out of 20, 416 test results for a positivity rate of 9.2 per cent.

Dr. Deena Hinshaw said there are now 716 Albertans in hospital due to COVID-19, an increase of 35, including 136 in ICU, same as Sunday.

The number of active COVID-19 cases in Alberta as of Monday sits at 21,123, an increase of 561.

There have now been 60,130 recovered cases in the province.

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Fifteen more COVID-19 deaths were reported on Monday to bring Alberta’s total to 734.

In Red Deer, the number of active cases fell by 17 to 408. Recovered cases are up by 33 to 627 as the total number of cases attributed to the city rose by 16 to 1035 as of Monday’s update.

Red Deer County saw its active case count drop by three to 105, while Sylvan Lake saw its drop by six to sit at 55.

Clearwater County (Rocky Mountain House) held steady with 69 active cases.

Lacombe County has 65 active cases as of Monday, an increase of one, while Lacombe’s also rose by one to a total of 32.

Ponoka County saw its active case count rise by 19 to sit at 254.

Mountain View County has 35 active cases, Olds has 27 and Kneehill County has risen to 24. Starland County is down to one active case, while the County of Stettler has 22.

There are now 1,594 active cases across the Central zone, an increase of five from Sunday, and 62 hospitalizations, also an increase of five. There are four people in the zone currently in intensive care. The Central zone has had 26 deaths related to COVID-19, which is unchanged over the last 24 hours.

With reproductive values (r-values) in Edmonton at 1.0, in Calgary at 0.92 and at 1.01 in the rest of the province, Dr. Hinshaw said it appears the cases plateaued over the past week.

A reproductive value of one shows that each person with the virus is, on average, infecting one other person.

She said a plateau is better than an increase, but it is not enough and that a single week’s r-value does not indicate a trend.

“R is also not useful when looked at alone,” said Hinshaw. “We also need to look at our new daily case numbers, which remain high.”

“What we need to achieve together is several weeks of an R-value well below one, with a corresponding decrease in new case numbers,” she said. “We are continuing to see growing hospitalizations and ICU admissions, which are straining our health system. We all must keep doing our part to limit in-person interactions whenever possible.”

The first shipment of 3,900 COVID-19 vaccines has arrived in Alberta and another 25,300 doses is expected next week.

(With file from Chris Brown – CHAT News Today)