WESTLOCK — No new cases of COVID-19 have been identified in the Westlock area since Feb. 8, although there is some confusion about the total number of cases caused by the provincial government’s geospatial COVID-19 tracker.
While Westlock ended last week with 176 recorded cases of COVID-19, the tracker displayed on less case on Tuesday, and dropped again to 173 today. There is yet no reason for the adjustment in case numbers, but the Town and Country has reached out to Alberta Health for an explanation.
There are three active cases in the area of 173 recorded since the start of the pandemic. Two people have died, including a 90-year-old resident at the Westlock Continuing Care Centre, and 168 others have recovered.
The area includes the Town of Westlock, Westlock County and the Village of Clyde.
In Alberta, 415 new cases were reported today out of about 10,300 tests for a positivity rate of 4.2 per cent. There are 4,887 active cases in the province.
Since yesterday, four new cases of the COVID-19 variant first identified in the United Kingdom have been identified, which brings the total variant cases to 226: of those, 218 are of the variant first identified in the United Kingdom, and seven of the variant first identified in South Africa.
There are 362 people in hospital, including 55 in ICU. Seven people have died since yesterday which brings the death toll in the province to 1,805.
Ten per cent of schools, 250 in total, have active alerts or outbreaks. Since Jan. 11, they have recorded 854 cases. None of the Westlock area schools have two or more active cases.
The province has administered 155,532 doses of the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines as of yesterday. Of those, 58,674 people have received both doses.
Andreea Resmerita, TownandCountryToday.com
Watch Alberta chief medical officer Dr. Deena Hinshaw's Feb. 18 COVID-19 update:
