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Three more Red Deer COVID-19 deaths, 331 active cases in Alberta

Red Deer is down to 362 active cases of the virus
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Alberta’s chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw acknowledged that Friday would be one year since the first case of COVID-19 was identified in the province. (photography by Chris Schwarz/Government of Alberta)

Red Deer is up to 29 COVID-19 deaths since the start of the pandemic, as the city dropped to 362 active cases of COVID-19.

The city is down almost 200 cases over the past two weeks.

There were also nine additional COVID-19 deaths in Alberta over the past 24 hours, bringing the death toll to 1,911. Three of those deaths were in Red Deer.

A man in his 40s who died on March 2, was connected to the outbreak at the Olymel plant. There are now 516 cases connected to that outbreak, with 69 active, 444 recovered cases and three deaths. A female in her 70s also died on March 2 and was connected to the outbreak at Michener Services. A third person, a man in his 50s from the Central zone, also died on March 2.

Overall, there are 245 people in hospital, with 47 in intensive care.

Alberta reported 331 additional cases of COVID-19, on 9,500 tests for a test positivity rate of 3.6 per cent.

The province now has 134,785 confirmed cases of the virus since the start of the pandemic, with 128,261 recovered cases. There are 4,613 active cases in Alberta as of Thursday.

Alberta chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw acknowledged that Friday would mark one year since the first case of the virus was discovered in Alberta.

“Together we have navigated the uncertainty of COVID-19 and living in a global pandemic,” she said.

“We’ve had to find new ways to work, socialize and look after our health. All while researchers, scientists and health professionals from around the world have worked to learn as much as they could about this new virus and how best to treat and prevent it.”

The Central zone sits at 545 active cases of COVID-19. Red Deer has about 66 per cent of the Central zone’s active cases and about seven per cent of Alberta’s.

When looking at the province’s geospatial mapping for COVID-19 cases on the municipality setting, regions are defined by metropolitan areas, cities, urban service areas, rural areas and towns with approximately 10,000 or more people; smaller regions are incorporated into the corresponding rural area.

With that setting, Red Deer County has 22 active cases of the virus, Lacombe County has 30 active and Clearwater County sits at eight active.

Lacombe has 14 active and Sylvan Lake has 17 active cases, while Olds sits at six active. Mountain View County sits at 25 active, Kneehill County has four active and Drumheller has 10 active.

Camrose County has no active cases and the County of Stettler sits at one active.

Camrose has no active cases and Wetaskiwin has three active.

In the local geographic area setting, Wetaskiwin County, including Maskwacis, has 33 active cases. Ponoka County, including east Ponoka County, has 17 active.

Rimbey, including west Ponoka County and partial Lacombe County, has five active cases.

The province has identified 33 new cases of the variant, bringing the province’s total to 541. The Central zone has 116 cases of the variant.

Active alerts or outbreaks in 230 schools. Those schools have a combined total of 895 cases, since Jan. 11.

Hinshaw added that with one year since the virus first arrived in the province, Alberta has made a lot of progress.

“Despite the changes, challenges and losses, we have encountered, we have proven just how resilient Albertans are,” Hinshaw said.

“Our fight isn’t over with COVID-19, because it is still very much in our communities. We are so much closer to returning to a more normal way of life than we were a year ago, or even a few weeks back.”