The province is easing some COVID-19 restrictions in the near future.
Premier Jason Kenney announced on Friday restaurants, cafes, and pubs will be able to return to in-person service starting on February 8.
A maximum of six people can dine per table, however, each individual must be from the same household or the two close contacts for people living alone.
These businesses must also collect the contact information of one person from each table.
Indoor personal fitness centres will also be able to accept appointments for people to use the facility and conduct one-on-one sessions as long as they stay three metres apart.
Children’s sport and performance activities can also start up again if they’re related to school activities such as gym classes.
The province’s reopening plan depends entirely on hospital numbers.
Step two, which includes eased measures for retail, community halls, hotels, and children’s sports, will start after hospitalizations hit the 450 case benchmark.
Once the province hits the 300 case benchmark, step three will commence which focuses on places of worship, team sports, libraries, casinos, movie theatres, and indoor social gatherings.
As for step four, when we go under the 150 case benchmark, measures will be similar to those put in place throughout last summer.
Kenney says there will be at least three weeks in between each step.
More information can be found on the GoA’s website.
Daily COVID-19 Update
Fort McMurray is dropping under 100 active cases.
Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, also announced on Friday 543 new cases across the province.
There are currently 7,805 active cases across Alberta, while there have been a total of 123,364 positive tests. There are also 594 Albertans in the hospital for the virus, 110 of which are in ICUs.
Locally, Fort McMurray added two new cases and 12 additional recoveries which lowers the active total to 92.
The rural areas added two new cases which raises the total of active cases to nine, while there are no active cases in Wood Buffalo National Park.
In total, 1,719 individuals across the RMWB – 1,586 in Fort McMurray, 124 in the rural areas, and nine in Wood Buffalo National Park – have recovered.
They are among the 113,939 who’ve recovered across the province. This represents over 92 per cent of reported cases.
There were also fourteen new deaths from COVID-19 in Alberta over the past 24 hours – raising the total to 1,620.
To date, three individuals in Fort McMurray have died as a result of the virus.