ALBERTA— The province is in the early stages of planning for the relaunch of the Alberta economy when COVID-19 public health measures are slowly lifted.
If Albertans continue to stringently follow public health emergency protocols, Premier Jason Kenney announced Wednesday (April 22) the province will soon be able to slowly reopen the economy based on guidance from public health officials.
“If we let the virus loose we would lose the value of all of the sacrifices that we have made to date and we would simply have to shutdown even more of our economy more harshly and probably for a longer period of time causing even more damage,” Kenney said. “I know this is getting increasingly difficult for Albertans but I do believe with the progress we’ve made that we can see light at the end of the tunnel.”
More details on the relaunch of the economy are expected to be released next week.
Kenney reported that there have been 306 new cases of the virus confirmed in the last 24-hours bringing the provincial total to 3,401. Of these cases, 70 people have been hospitalized and 18 have been admitted to intensive care units.
There have been five new COVID-19 related deaths bringing the provincial total of deaths to 66.
A total of 1,310 people have fully recovered from the virus.
There have been 31 cases reported in Rocky View County and 15 cases reported in the Springbank-Cochrane region.
Kenney said the good news is the number of hospitalized Albertans has continued to fall well below Alberta Health Services modelling predictions that were released two-weeks ago.
The premier applauded Albertans for following public health orders and said these actions have put the province in a better place to deal with the pandemic in comparison to many other jurisdictions.
Kenney said at if the province continues to see lower numbers than expected there is the possibility the Alberta economy may be able to begin a relaunch earlier than anticipated.
Testing for COVID-19 has played a key role in preventing the spread of the virus, Kenney said, and the ability to test for new cases of the virus will allow for better tracking of patients who can then be isolated to help limit the spread of COVID-19.
He added that since March 4 there have been 108,531 COVID-19 tests completed in the province.
“We still lead all provinces in per capita testing and will continue to ramp up those numbers as they will be an essential part of our relaunch strategy,” Kenney said. “We want to get Albertans back to work as soon as it is safe to do.”
The relaunch of the economy will embrace a phased and prudent approach, he said, explaining that everything cannot be opened all at once.
Many of the new COVID-19 cases in the province have been linked to outbreaks at meat processing plants in Brooks and High River. An outbreak at the JBS Canada plant accounts for 86 confirmed cases in workers and the Cargill plant accounts for 440 cases confirmed in workers, with larger community transmission of 580 cases.
“These are reminders of how quickly the virus can spread through close contact,” Alberta’s Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw said.
Looking to the future Hinshaw said that for the health measures to slowly be removed the province would need to see a stable or decline in the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations for a period of at least one to two weeks in tandem with stable or declining case numbers.
The loosening of public health restrictions would also take into account where cases are coming from and if they can be identified from coming from a particular location.
“It’s a larger picture of the stories behind the cases, how we’re able to control it and those trends over time, rather than an absolute cut off,” Hinshaw said. “We are looking at all of these considerations as we make the relaunch plan.”
