Alberta added three deaths to its COVID-19 total on Monday and all three people were under the age of 50.
According to Alberta Health, a man in his 20s with no known comorbidities, a man in his 40s with known comorbidities and a woman in her 30s with known comorbidities died.
All three deaths occurred in the North zone and were reported to Alberta Health in the last 24 hours.
Over the same time period, the province confirmed an additional 2,271 cases of COVID-19 from 20,494 tests. The provincial positivity rate was 11.2 per cent.
Alberta also confirmed an additional 903 cases of variants of concern. Variants now make up at least 59.4 per cent of Alberta’s active cases.
Alberta Health Services has shifted away from screening all positive COVID-19 cases for variants of concern, instead targeting variant screening on populations at highest risk.
There were 666 people in hospital with COVID-19 on Wednesday, with 146 of those people receiving care in the ICU.
The province reported 24,156 active cases. The majority are in the Calgary zone with 10,288 confirmed cases. In the Edmonton zone there are 6,098 confirmed cases, there are 2,888 confirmed cases in the Central zone, 1,280 cases were reported in the South zone and there were 3,570 active cases in the North zone.
There were 32 active cases not attributed to a specific zone.
As of Tuesday, Alberta had administered 1,694,675 doses of COVID-19 vaccine.
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On Wednesday, the province announced it was opening vaccine eligibility to all Albertans over the age of 12.
Stronger restrictions in an attempt to bend the curve were introduced Tuesday night and include moving all students back to online learning, closing restaurants to all in-person dining and closing personal service businesses like hair and nail salons. All of the new restrictions will be in place for at least three weeks.