WESTLOCK — The Westlock area has recorded one more case of COVID-19 since yesterday’s update.
There are 24 active cases of 152 recorded since the start of the pandemic. One person has died, a 90-year-old man at the Westlock Continuing Care Centre, and 127 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.
Vaccinations have reportedly started in Westlock, including at the Continuing Care and Smithfield Lodge. Homeland Housing is in talks with Alberta Health Services about immunizing residents at the Pembina Lodge next. The province has administered 37,686 doses as of yesterday.
Health-care workers in medical, surgical and COVID-19 units across Alberta have been added to the list of priority vaccinations, the government announced today in a press release. Nurses and pharmacists not employed by AHS can also start delivering the vaccine.
In Alberta, 1,183 new cases were reported today out of 16,700 tests administered, for a positivity rate of 6.8 per cent. There are 13,628 active cases in the province. Twenty-four more people have died, which brings the death toll in Alberta to 1,241.
Hospitalizations sit at 851, with 135 of them in ICU.
On Twitter, Alberta’s chief medical officer Dr. Deena Hinshaw reported that Alberta has detected the first case of the South African COVID-19 variant in a person who recently traveled.
“The individual is in quarantine & there’s no evidence at this time that the virus has spread to others,” she said.
Alberta has detected its first case of the South African variant of COVID-19. This case involved a recent traveller. The individual is in quarantine & there’s no evidence at this time that the virus has spread to others. (1/2)
— Dr. Deena Hinshaw (@CMOH_Alberta) January 8, 2021
