During Thursdays COVID 19 update, Health Minister Jason Copping announced that Alberta has reached the highest number of people in hospital with COVID ever.

Despite this information, Premier Jason Kenney commented that early indications say that we have reached and surpassed the peak of the Omicron variant.

He said that the province is still working to acquire more private test kits, but that just recently the U.S. government had swept in and purchased one billion tests from the company Alberta had a contract with to purchase from.

Kenney said that this is one of the reasons why Canada needs to procure their own manufacturers.

Eight million tests are expected for the province by the end of the week, with many of those going to priority groups such as schools.

Kenney mentioned that on Jan. 16 reports have shown a decline in positivity rates of COVID, which has followed suit with other countries that had encountered the virus earlier than Canada, such as England.

England is currently working on removing all of their COVID restriction, and the Premier said that he has been asked constantly if Alberta will follow suit.

“Hopefully soon,” Kenney noted, mentioning that Alberta is still waiting for the Omicron wave to end.