The city of Lethbridge has recently seen a jump in COVID-19 cases, with numbers more than tripling over the past week.
On July, 9, the number of active cases sat at just eight and as of Friday, that number has soared to 30.
“There’s probably a few reasons,” said Lizette Elumir-Tanner, medical officer of health for Alberta Health Services in the South zone. “There’s always many factors and one of them is the province is opening up a lot more. And so we’re just seeing a lot more cases that way.
“When you’re having more people interacting with each other, that’s going to be inevitable.”
Elumir-Tanner said people experiencing fatigue in relation to following health guidelines can also partly explain the rise in cases.
READ MORE: Alberta records highest daily COVID-19 jump since May
As events continue to take place at one of Lethbridge’s biggest facilities, an executive at Exhibition Park said staff have observed visitors abiding by health guidelines.
When it comes to making the use of masks mandatory across the city, the emergency management director with the City of Lethbridge says that’s something currently being looked into with AHS.
“We’re working with the province on this.”
If cases do continue to rise at an exponential rate, Rathwell says the province may have to shut things down again and reassess.
Alberta is currently in Phase 2 of its relaunch strategy. A date for the start of Phase 3 has yet to be announced.