Alberta’s top doctor is scheduled to provide another update Friday on the province’s COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, deaths and public health measures.
Dr. Deena Hinshaw is set to speak at 3:30 p.m.
Her news conference will be streamed live in this story.
On Thursday, Alberta set another record for new daily COVID-19 cases, with 1,854 new cases confirmed. That means there were 17,743 active cases across the province.
There were 511 Albertans in hospital, 97 of whom were in ICU.
The province also recorded 14 more deaths connected to the virus.
Hinshaw would not say whether recent public health orders were working, saying the next few days could produce the “early impacts” of the restrictions put in place on Nov. 24.
The public health orders include no indoor social gatherings of any kind, mandatory masks in all indoor work places and limiting capacity at businesses to 25 per cent.
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“No one should be watching these numbers to determine whether or not to change their behaviour,” she said Thursday. “Behaviour needs to change and that’s already a mandate.
“What we need to do as we’re watching these numbers is determine whether or not there should be further changes.”
Mayor Naheed Nenshi said on Friday that people should be ready for more COVID-19 restrictions in the near future.
“There’s no way these restrictions are getting lifted and they will almost certainly become more restrictive — and frankly that should happen right away,” Nenshi said in an interview with The Morning News on Global News Radio 770 CHQR.
“We don’t have time to wait.”
“We need to ensure that we’re keeping people safe because the moment this spirals out of control, the moment we run out of hospital beds, we won’t be able to control it anymore,” Nenshi said.
© 2020 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
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