There have now been 500 COVID-19 related deaths in Alberta and more than 50,000 total cases.

Both thresholds were announced during Wednesday’s update with Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw.

She says the provincial positivity rate is also sitting at about 8.1 per cent with 1,265 new cases out of 15,600 tests.

Alberta also set another record for the number of active cases with 13,719.

There are 355 people in hospital being treated for COVID-19 and 71 of them are in the ICU.

Hinshaw says Alberta Health Services will be increasing COVID capacity with more than 2,000 acute care beds and 400 ICU beds being made available in the coming weeks.

Here in the South Zone, there were 55 new cases over the past day – 24 of them in Lethbridge, ten in Lethbridge County, nine in the MD of Taber and five in the County of Warner.