Social gatherings in the City and County of Grande Prairie are now limited to 15 people. The new restriction was brought into place for all communities on active COVID-19 watch status by Alberta Health.
Alberta Health defines a gathering as any situation that brings people together in the same space at the same time for the same purpose. Premier Jason Kenney says the government is also strongly recommending Albertans limit their cohorts to no more than three people.
“All that we have accomplished together is now at risk.”
The number of COVID-19 cases continues to rise in Alberta. There were 802 new cases reported on November 4th and another 609 on November 5th. Specific regional data is again not available due to a technical issue, although Alberta Health Services will again start reporting on weekends.
Kenney says there is a growing number of hospitalizations and ICU admissions with 171 people in hospital currently and 33 of them in the ICU. There have also been eight COVID-related deaths over the past two days, including in the North zone a man in his 80s linked to the outbreak at Mayerthorpe Extendicare.
Alberta Health Services is looking to hire approximately 380 more contact-tracing staff in order to keep up with rapidly increasing close contact numbers. Kenney says the team currently consists of roughly 800 employees, and they are being forced to only focus on priority cases because they can’t keep up.