EDMONTON -- Alberta Health reported 556 COVID-19 cases on Saturday by Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta chief medical officer of health, on Twitter.
Hospitalizations and ICU admissions remained steady with 279 and 47, respectively.
On Friday, 264 Albertans were hospitalized with COVID-19 and 43 were in ICU.
An additional 99 ‘variant of concern’ cases were reported Saturday.
Four more deaths were reported, bringing Alberta’s total deaths to 1,961.
More than 9,900 tests were completed on March 19, translating to a positivity rate of 5.2 per cent – a slight decrease from Thursday’s positivity rate of 5.8 per cent.
There are now 5,618 active cases in the province.
On Friday, 696 COVID-19 cases were reported – representing the largest one-day increase since mid-January.
STEP 3?
Monday is the earliest Alberta could decide to enter Step 3 of its reopening plan. The province remains under the 300-hospitalization mark needed to advance, but Hinshaw has said she's watching for total case counts, variants, positivity rate and R-value.
She will give her next liveupdate on Monday.
