Alberta’s chief medical officer of health cautioned the public about inaccurate information regarding the so-called ‘doubling rate’ of the COVID-19 variants in a series of Tweets posted Friday afternoon.

In the thread, Dr. Deena Hinshaw said any report the rate of growth of the variant is doubling every seven days “is not accurate."

It is unclear what may have prompted such questions. However, a Calgary-based doctor had recently been circulating her own analysis of the variant doubling rate, using publicly available Alberta Health data.

However, Dr. Hinshaw said Alberta has not yet established a rate of growth for the variant, because the volume of variant testing changed substantially in February.

She added that since Feb. 1 variant cases account for three per cent of all positive COVID-19 cases.

Alberta had recorded a total of 71 variant cases on Feb. 5, and then 149 six days later on Feb. 11.

On Friday, Alberta’s total number of confirmed variant cases was 171, up 15 from the day before. All were of the B.1.1.7. variety, which was first detected in the U.K. 

Over the last 24 hours, Alberta added 314 new cases of COVID-19 on 8,410 tests, according to data from Alberta Health, putting the positivity rate at about 3.8 per cent. Sixteen new deaths were reported, bringing Alberta’s total to 1,760.

The next scheduled in-person COVID-19 update is on Tuesday.