Coronavirus: Officials urge Albertans to follow guidelines as Step 1 of reopening takes effect |FULL

Alberta’s chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw is urging Albertans to continue to follow public health measures as the province moves into Step 1 of reopening.

“Our public health measures are effective risk mitigation tools to help minimize spread of the virus and to protect our provincial health-care system,” Hinshaw said during the opening statement of her daily update on COVID-19 in the province on Monday.

On Monday, the province recorded 269 new cases of COVID-19 from about 6,200 tests. That brings Alberta’s positivity rate to 4.3 per cent. There were five additional COVID-related deaths.

There were 269 people in hospital with 76 of those patients in intensive care.

Since Friday, there were 25 additional cases of COVID variants in the province, with 46 cases not linked to travel.

“It is concerning that we are finding more of them in the community without links to travel, but some of these are linked to each other, so we are seeing some limited outbreaks,” Hinshaw said.

Hinshaw also reiterated that the new measures like improved contact tracing, quarantine rules and double testing of close contacts are meant to slow the spread of variant strains.

For more info, please go to https://globalnews.ca/news/7627348/covid-19-update-alberta-feb-8-2021/

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