Health Minister Tyler Shandro. (Government of Alberta)

By David Opinko

Alberta not relaxing COVID restrictions as cases & hospitalizations rise

Mar 22, 2021 | 3:42 PM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – “There will be no easing of any restrictions at this time.”

Alberta’s Minister of Health Tyler Shandro says the province will not be moving to Step 3 of the relaunch plan.

“This is the safe move, it’s the smart move to make for our province right now and it’s absolutely necessary to help us avoid a third wave that would take more lives and, once again, put more pressure on the hospital system.”

The province is currently in Step 2, which was achieved after fewer than 450 people were hospitalized due to COVID-19. The benchmark for Step 3 is 300 hospitalizations.

While Alberta has been under the Step 3 threshold for a couple of weeks now, Shandro clarifies that the rule is “under 300 and declining.”

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Numbers for hospitalizations and cases been increasing in recent days, particularly in areas like Lethbridge.

“Until today, we had seen seven straight days of growth of people in hospitals and that hasn’t happened since we had 40 days of increases that began October 30th. That was the start of the second wave.”

In today’s report on COVID-19, 280 people are currently hospitalized due to the virus in Alberta including 48 who have been admitted to intensive care.

AHS is forecasting that, in the coming days, that will rise to over 300.

“It would be irresponsible and unfair to Albertans to ease measures now only to reinstate them only a few days later. The Path Forward is about taking our time to make good decisions based on the evidence.”

COVID-19 hospitalizations in Alberta. (Alberta Health Services)

Projected COVID-19 hospitalizations in Alberta. (Alberta Health Services)

Last week, the r-value for cases in Alberta was 1.14. Shandro explains that anything above one means that cases are growing.

Variants of COVID-19 now account for around 16 per cent of all active cases, up from about 10 per cent a couple of weeks ago.

“This is not the direction we want to be heading in.”

Step 3 includes the potential easing of measures on adult team sports, casinos, youth sports and recreation, indoor social gatherings, indoor seated events such as movie theatres, museums, zoos, and places of worship.

The full list of COVID-19 restrictions currently in effect and what is in each step of the relaunch plan can be found here.