LETHBRIDGE, AB – Alberta’s top doctor says she is “more concerned than ever before, about the spread of this virus.”
On Monday, Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw reported another 1,735 new cases of COVID-19 were confirmed between Saturday and Sunday as were 16 additional deaths.
There are now more than 20,000 people in Alberta with the virus.
Province-wide there are 609 people in hospital and 108 of them are in the ICU.
When asked if recent measures, put in place at the end of November, were strict enough, Hinshaw said “I believe that all of those restrictions have put us in a better position than we would have been had we not introduced those restrictions, however it’s currently looking like the measures that were put in place two weeks ago are unlikely to be sufficient to bend the curve downwards which is of course what we have to do if we’re going to protect our acute care system.”
Hinshaw says her team has been working very hard to put together a package of recommendations for discussion that will be presented to cabinet.
Here in the South Zone of Alberta Health Service there was one additional death since Saturday and 56 new cases.
Lethbridge reported almost half of those new cases with 24 additional people testing positive over the past day.
The city now has 250 active cases.
Lethbridge County totalled seven new cases, while Medicine Hat reported five new cases and Cardston County saw six new cases of COVID-19.
In the South Zone there are currently 654 active cases, 14 people in hospital – three of them in the ICU.