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Health Minister Tyler Shandro (Photo: Government of Alberta)
By Shaun Penner
Other restrictions remain

Province allowing small outdoor gatherings, personal service businesses to open Jan. 18

Jan 14, 2021 | 4:57 PM

The province is loosening some public health restrictions, effective Monday, January 18.

Health Minister Tyler Shandro made the announcement on Thursday afternoon, where he announced that starting Monday, up to 10 people will be allowed at outdoor social gatherings. Indoor social gatherings will continue to be prohibited.

Personal and wellness services, such as hair salons and tattoo parlours, will be permitted to open by appointment only.

Funeral ceremony attendance has been increased to 20 people, with mandatory masking and social distancing rules in effect. Receptions will continue to be prohibited.

The province adds all other existing health measures, most enacted back on December 13, will remain in place.

“Albertans have done a good job of staying the course and abiding by public health measures, but we are still seeing high hospitalizations and case numbers, and this continues to put a serious strain on our health-care system,” said Shandro.

“How much further we can ease restrictions depends on our collective efforts over the coming days and weeks to limit the spread of the virus.”

The announcement was made as hospitalizations for COVID-19 in the province sit at 806 as of the end of day Wednesday, with 136 of those individuals in an ICU. 967 new cases of COVID-19 were recorded for January 13.

“Although we’ve seen a decline in transmission, our health-care system is still at risk,” said Dr. Deena Hinshaw, the province’s chief medical officer of health. “We must remain diligent in our efforts to bring our numbers down even further.

“By easing some measures like outdoor gathering limits, we hope to support Albertans’ mental health, while still following other restrictions that are helping us reduce case numbers.”

With the COVID-19 remaining serious, according to Dr. Hinshaw, some restrictions that will continue to be in place are a ban on in-person dining and retail stores must hold capacity to 15 per cent of fire code capacity.

Shandro says the government wants to avoid tightening and relaxing restrictions on an intermittent basis before allowing other businesses and services to open.

by Shaun Penner