Alberta confirms 1,521 cases of COVID-19 on Friday, 674 new variant cases

More than 45 per cent of active COVID-19 cases in Alberta involve a variant of concern, the province reported on Friday.

Alberta Health announced a total of 1,521 cases of COVID-19 had been confirmed over the last 24 hours. An additional 674 cases of variants of concern were confirmed.

Two more Albertans have died due to the novel coronavirus.

A woman in her 50s linked to the outbreak at Covenant Health St. Joseph’s in the Edmonton zone and a woman in her 60s from the Calgary zone have both died. Both cases had comorbidities.

Alberta’s COVID-19 death toll now stands at 2,007.

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The province completed 15,611 COVID-19 tests over the last 24 hours and the positivity rate sat at 9.9 per cent.

There were 13,059 active cases on Friday afternoon, with the majority in the Edmonton and Calgary zones. There were 6,064 active cases in the Calgary zone, 3,169 in the Edmonton zone, the Central Zone had 1,050 active cases, there were 947 in the South zone and 1,718 in the North zone.

There were 111 active cases not attributed to any specific zone.

Alberta had administered 779,871 doses of COVID-19 vaccine as of April 7.

To date, 143,360 Albertans have recovered from the novel coronavirus.

New measures to attempt to bend the curve of cases in Alberta came into effect at noon on Friday. No in-person service is allowed inside restaurants, pubs, lounges and cafes. Patio and takeout service is still permitted.

This is the third time Alberta restaurants have had to close their doors.

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On Tuesday, Premier Jason Kenney warned Alberta is on track to have 2,000 new infections a day and 1,000 people in hospital with COVID-19 by the end of April, and that the third wave is being driven by variants.

– With a file from Caley Ramsay, Global News