Premier Jason Kenney Facebook Q&A

By David Opinko / with files from The Canadian Press

Kenney to make announcement Saturday about pandemic reopening plan

Feb 22, 2022 | 1:37 PM

EDMONTON – Alberta Premier Jason Kenney says he’ll announce “a final decision” on Saturday, Feb. 26 on whether to proceed with the second phase of the province’s pandemic reopening plan.

Kenney tweeted on Monday that it will be “a prudent decision based on the latest data,” and that “damaging restrictions should not last one day longer than necessary to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed.”

Step 2 will remove any remaining requirements for schools, such as cohorts for kids in kindergarten to Grade 6, and will drop youth screening for entertainment and sports, as well as capacity limits on all large venues.

It will also remove indoor mask requirements, indoor and outdoor gathering limits, and mandatory work-from-home requirements.

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Kenney ended the province’s vaccine passport earlier this month as well as mask requirements for schools, and mask requirements in all settings for children under 12.

He said at that time that Alberta would enter Step 2 of the reopening plan on March 1 if COVID-19 hospitalizations were trending downward, and on Monday he said the data continues to show a steep drop in the COVID-19 Omicron wave.

While COVID-19 hospitalizations have fallen slightly in the last couple of weeks, AHS reported on Friday that 1,494 patients were hospitalized with the virus including 116 who were in ICU.

These numbers, as illustrated in the graph from AHS below, are still near the all-time pandemic high.

COVID-19 hospitalizations and ICU admissions in Alberta. (Alberta Health Services)

(The Canadian Press)