Photo Credit: Government of Alberta

By Chris Brown

Still in Step 1

No decision on moving to Step 2 of reopening before March 1

Feb 22, 2021 | 5:31 PM

Even though the province is below the hospitalization threshold established for moving to the next stage of reopening, Dr. Deena Hinshaw says the province will take the full three weeks to assess the data before moving forward on the timetable of easing public health restrictions.

“No decision on moving to step two will be made prior to March 1 at the earliest,” she said today, noting case counts have risen in recent days and hospitalizations have plateaued.

“We are being cautious as it is too early to say if this recent increase is significant or but a temporary pause in the strong downward trend we have seen over the past several weeks,” the chief medical officer of health said.

She noted the reproductive value has risen to 1.03 province-wide, an indication that case counts are rising. In Calgary, the r-value is 0.95, while in Edmonton it is at 0.93.

Outside of Alberta’s two largest cities, the reproductive value is 1.13.

The threshold to reach before considering moving to Step 2 is having fewer than 450 hospitalizations, which Alberta achieved over a week ago.

Moving to Step 2 would see an easing of restrictions for retail, banquet halls, community halls, conference centres, hotels, and a further easing for indoor fitness and children’s play activities.

Wanting to discuss positives, Hinshaw highlighted a 92 per cent decline in active cases in long-term care in less than two months, as well as a steep decline in cases in designated supportive living facilities.

“These emphasize for us both that the public health measures have worked and that vaccines can have a tremendous protective effect for those who are most at risk,” she said.

She also highlighted the drop in acute care outbreaks province-wide from 27 on Jan. 2 to eight today and new and active cases in school-aged Albertans dropping from more than 2,000 to under 800 since schools reopened for in-person learning.

When it comes to COVID-19 deaths, Hinshaw showed they have declined from an average of 167 per week at the end of December to 23 over the past seven days.

She said those highlights serve as a reminder “that we have the power to limit transmission when every one of us limits our in-person interactions and when we all follow not only the details of the restrictions in place but also the spirit of them.”

(With files from CHAT News Today and Lethbridge News Now)