Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw. (Government of Alberta)

By Chris Brown

"WE WILL EXPLORE MORE TARGETED ACTION IF NEEDED"

Hinshaw hints at regional approach to lifting restrictions

Feb 9, 2021 | 10:44 AM

On the first day of Alberta’s Step 1 to easing COVID-19 restrictions across the province, Dr. Deena Hinshaw says they are watching how the moves impact different parts of the province and signalled a more regional approach is on the table.

“We are looking at trends both provincially and regionally to assess the impacts of the steps being taken and to monitor for any change in trends,” said the province’s chief medical officer of health on Monday.

“We will explore more targeted action if needed, either easing or tightening of measures at the health zone level should circumstances warrant this in the future.”

As part of that, the province has eliminated the colour-coded regional status map and removed the regional classifications of “Enhanced,” “Watch” and “Open.”

Active case numbers and active cases rates remain on the page.

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Hinshaw says cases continue to trend down throughout the province, evidenced by the r-value of 0.87.

An r-value, or reproductive value of one shows that each person with the virus is, on average, infecting one other person.

Declining hospitalization numbers were also highlighted as a positive by Hinshaw.

There were 269 new cases reported in the province Monday. 432 Albertans were in hospital with COVID-19, 76 of which are in ICU, and 1,710 deaths. The province completed 6,184 tests in the past 24 hours. The provincial positivity rate for Monday 4.3 per cent.

Hinshaw explains that the surprise decision this past weekend to add limited group physical activity for young people was made after data showed school-age new daily cases have been trending downwards after resuming in-person learning last month and based on lower transmission rates in young people.

She said the role physical activity plays in children’s wellbeing and mental health played a part in the decision.

Health measures to reduce the risk of transmission such are physical distancing, masking, and limits on who can participate remain.

For children’s sports and everyone in the province as Step 1 begins, Hinshaw said “it’s vital that every public health measure be followed at all times. This is the only way to protect the public health of everyone involved.”

Hinshaw added that it’s unfortunate the direction came as late as it did, considering some communities removed ice and organizations returned fees after cancelling sports seasons prior to the change.

She said it’s too soon to talk about moving to Step 2 and that a minimum of three weeks exists between steps to monitor hospitalizations, positivity rate, new case numbers and overall growth rate along the way.

The government says a decision on Step 2 will be made if, on Feb. 28, there are 450 or fewer hospitalizations and the number is declining. The same re-evaluation period will be used for all subsequent steps.