WESTLOCK — With 14 active COVID-19 cases of a total of 46 recorded, the Westlock area’s status switched from ‘watch list’ to ‘enhanced measures’.
This change means that social gatherings have a mandatory limit of 15 people. At the same time as Westlock, all other municipalities outside Edmonton and Calgary that were previously watch listed now have to follow enhanced measures.
In the past 24 hours, two more cases were recorded locally — the province includes the Town of Westlock, Westlock County and the Village of Clyde in the count. During a Clyde council meeting yesterday, CAO Ron Cust told councillors some of those cases are in the village.
Of the 46 cases the area has seen since the start of the pandemic, 39 people have tested positive in the last month. No COVID-related deaths have been recorded and 32 have recovered to date.
Local effects
The Town of Westlock instituted a mandatory mask bylaw Oct. 28, once cases started to rise rapidly and the Westlock area was watch listed with over 10 active cases and a case rate greater than 50 per 100,000 people. Currently, the rate sits at 102.4 per 100,000 people.
In the Village of Clyde, where councillors got heated while talking about the necessity for a mask bylaw, the decision was ultimately made to at least have one drawn up by administration while they monitor the situation.
The Westlock & District Chamber of Commerce executive has also decided to postpone all regular meetings until January 2021. Last week, president Graeme Harrington told the News the executive would be considering a virtual format but was definitely going to look at the issue.
Curving upwards
Although the spread has seemingly slowed down locally, the case counts in Westlock since October mirror those across the province. Chief medical officer Dr. Deena Hinshaw has been warning that the rise is concerning.
Active cases climbed to over 8,000 today and the province now sits at 8,090. Hospitalizations, the statistic health officials are watching to determine the level of jeopardy the health care system is in, sit at 207 with 43 people in ICU. All three are COVID records for the province.
Particularly worrisome, Hinshaw said over the past two weeks, is the number of people in hospitals in the cities. Additional measures are in place in Edmonton and Calgary, where unstructured social gatherings are also limited to 15 people. The other measures are voluntary: a limit of three cohorts per household, stopping all gatherings at home, and wearing a mask indoors at work.
The provincial government is instead urging people to socialize outside or in structured settings like restaurants since very a small percentage of cases are related to the latter, Hinshaw said last week.
Seven more deaths were recorded since yesterday, which brings the death toll in Alberta to 376.
