Alberta reached a pandemic milestone Friday, surpassing 10,000 total cases of COVID-19 as the province recorded 111 new cases over the last 24 hours.
The province’s overall case count sat at 10,086 following Friday afternoon’s update from Alberta Health. Of those, there were 1,341 active cases with 95 people in hospital and 19 people being treated in intensive care.
Two additional deaths were also recorded in the province Friday, both in the Edmonton zone. Alberta Health said a woman in her 80s has died in connection to the outbreak at Shepherd’s Care Greenfield, a seniors’ care home.
A woman in her 100s also died of the illness. Alberta Health said that death is linked to the outbreak at Edmonton’s Good Samaritan Southgate Care Centre.
The provincial COVID-19 death toll was at 178 as of Friday afternoon.
As of July 24, the majority of active cases remain in Alberta’s major cities, with 703 cases in the Calgary zone and 232 cases in the Edmonton zone.
Alberta’s Central zone has 167 cases while there are 141 active COVID-19 cases in the South zone and 90 cases in the North zone.
There are currently an additional eight cases in Alberta that are not linked to a particular zone.
On Thursday, the rising numbers prompted Alberta’s chief medical officer of health to once again plead with Albertans to exercise caution amid the ongoing pandemic.
“I believe the recent increase in numbers is, in part, reflective of the fact that fatigue has set in,” Dr. Deena Hinshaw said in a news conference.
“After several months of not catching the virus, it is easy to say that you feel fine so why wash your hands? Why stay two metres away in public? Why avoid sharing food at a barbecue?
“While it is true that younger people who catch COVID-19 have a lower risk of severe outcomes, lower risk does not mean zero risk.”
So far, 8,567 Albertans have recovered from COVID-19 and 623,442 coronavirus tests have been completed in the province.