WESTLOCK — The Westlock area has recorded one new COVID-19 case since yesterday’s update, and one person has recovered.
There are 13 active cases of 160 recorded since the start of the pandemic. One person has died, a 90-year-old man at the Westlock Continuing Care Centre, and 146 others have recovered.
The area includes the Town of Westlock, Westlock County and the Village of Clyde.
The outbreak at the Continuing Care Centre is still ongoing.
The province has administered 92,315 doses of the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines as of yesterday. All residents and staff at the province’s 357 long-term care and designated supported living have received the first dose of the vaccine.
Some residents in mixed facilities will have to wait for their first dose of the vaccine because of the shortage. At Smithfield Lodge in Westlock, a mixed facility where some residents are long-term care, all healthcare workers and residents have been vaccinated.
Two out of three Albertans who have died of COVID-19 lived in either long-term care or designated supportive living facilities, said Alberta’s chief medical officer Dr. Deena Hinshaw.
Seniors over the age of 75 are part of the next phase. “We want to begin as soon as possible. Unfortunately, the timing depends on when the vaccine arrives.”
The province’s original plan was to start Phase 2 in February.
In Alberta, 456 new cases were reported today out of 8,200 tests for a positivity rate of 5.6 per cent. There are 11,096 active cases in the province.
“Our positivity rate is declining but it is still far above the one to two per cent that we saw for most of the summer,” said Dr. Hinshaw.
The healthcare system is still under severe strain, she said.
As for the low testing numbers compared to December 2020, Hinshaw said Alberta Health Services hasn’t determined a cause, “but one factor could be fewer people getting sick.”
Seventeen more people have died which brings the death toll in Alberta to 1,463. Hospitalizations sit at 740, with 119 of them in ICU.
There are 212 cases in schools across Alberta. Two schools are on outbreak with five or more cases, and 147 on alert. None of the schools in the Westlock area have two or more COVID-19 cases.
Andreea Resmerita, TownandCountryToday.com
Watch Dr. Hinshaw's Jan. 19 COVID-19 update:
