Fort McMurray is seeing the total of active COVID-19 cases drop.

Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, announced on Thursday 1,571 new cases across the province.

This raises the provincial total to 86,168 with 19,865 currently active. There are also 763 Albertans in the hospital for the virus, 138 of which are in ICUs.

Locally, Fort McMurray added 20 new cases and 24 additional recoveries which lowers the active total to 215.

The rural areas didn’t see any new changes which keeps the total of active cases at six.

In total, 974 individuals across the RMWB – 865 in Fort McMurray and 109 in the rural areas – have recovered.

They are among the 65,513 who’ve recovered across the province. This represents over 76 per cent of reported cases.

There were also 30 new deaths from COVID-19 in Alberta over the past day – raising the total to 790.

To date, two individuals in Fort McMurray have died as a result of the virus.

Oilsands Outbreaks

A COVID-19 outbreak has been declared at Syncrude’s Aurora site.

Spokesperson Will Gibson didn’t say how many cases are linked to the project, just that there have been 210 cases at all their locations since the start of the pandemic.

This includes Aurora, Mildred Lake, in Edmonton, and in Calgary.

Seventy cases remain active as 140 individuals have already recovered from the virus.

Gibson adds they believe the majority of the cases were from community transmission.

Meanwhile, Suncor’s Fort Hills site is also seeing an outbreak pop up.

Since November 20, 33 individuals with ties to the site have contracted the virus.

Twelve remain active while the other 21 have since recovered.

Neither outbreak has had any impact on operations at Aurora and Fort Hills.