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Everything you need to know about COVID-19 in Alberta on Friday, July 2

As of Friday, there were 895 active COVID-19 cases in Alberta, the fewest since mid-July last year.

There are now 895 active COVID-19 cases in Alberta, the fewest since mid-July last year

Sollena Lai, graduate nurse with Siksika Health Services, prepares a COVID-19 vaccine. (Alberta Health Services)

The latest COVID-19 numbers

  • Alberta reported 110 new cases of COVID-19 out of 10,732 tests on June 30 and July 1.
  • There are 895 active COVID-19 cases — the fewest active cases since August 2020 — and the positivity rate is 0.69 per cent
  • There were 144 people in hospital in Alberta, and of those 33 were in intensive care units.
  • Alberta reported one more death on Friday.
  • Alberta said one previously reported death has been determined post-mortem to not have COVID-19 as a contributing cause and has been removed from the total, which is 2,301. 
  • 228,901 Albertans are considered to have recovered from COVID-19.
  • The latest R-value was 0.75, meaning the virus is spreading to fewer than one person for each confirmed case. That number has slightly decreased from the previous week.
  • Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta's chief medical officer of health, said there is still no timeline for when race-based COVID-19 data will be released.

The latest on restrictions and reopenings:

  • Alberta entered Stage 3 of its three-stage reopening plan on July 1. That means:
    • All restrictions will be lifted, including the ban on indoor social gatherings.
    • The general indoor provincial mask mandate will be lifted, but masking may still be required in limited settings or if certain communities continue it under local bylaws.
  • Edmonton city council voted on Friday to drop its mandatory mask bylaw July 1.
  • Calgary will have its mask mandate in place until at least July 5.
  • Banff town council voted to immediately end its outdoor masking bylaw on Wednesday morning, but will maintain indoor masking until July 1.
  • In terms of travel, fully vaccinated Canadians and permanent residents will be able to enter Canada without undergoing quarantine starting the night of July 5, the federal government announced on June 21. However, Canadians and permanent residents who are fully vaccinated will need to show documents proving they received doses of vaccines approved in Canada at least 14 days prior to entering the country.
  • Officials said travellers must electronically submit COVID-19-related information to the government's ArriveCAN app before arriving, meet the pre- and on-arrival test requirements, be asymptomatic and have a suitable quarantine plan.

(Note the latest daily count of new cases in the above chart will usually vary slightly from the net new cases Alberta Health announces each day. For more on why, click here.)

The latest on vaccines:

  • Alberta has changed how it reports the percentage of Albertans who have been vaccinated. It is now measuring the total population using Statistics Canada data from July 2020. 
  • 38.1 per cent of all Albertans have been fully vaccinated, and 62.1 per cent of the total population has been vaccinated with one dose (73.1 per cent of those ages 12 and up). 
  • Alberta has administered 4,432,975 doses of COVID-19 vaccine, including Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca-Oxford.
  • Hinshaw said that due to dropping demand, Alberta has more than 4,000 doses of AstraZeneca that will expire July 1.
  • Anyone who received their first mRNA (Pfizer or Moderna) dose in May or earlier can book their second dose of COVID-19 vaccine. Also, anyone who received a first mRNA dose in June can also now book their second dose once four weeks have passed since their first shot.
  • Alberta is offering $3 million in lottery winnings to encourage more people to get a COVID-19 vaccine. Prizes of $1 million will be available for Albertans aged 18 and over who have had at least one dose. To register, eligible Albertans must fill out their information at alberta.ca/lottery.
  • The province expects to receive fewer Pfizer doses in the coming weeks than it had anticipated. But an increase in Moderna shipments means Alberta will see an overall increase in supply of mRNA vaccines in July.
  • Canada's national advisory committee on immunization says Moderna and Pfizer can be used interchangeably because they use the same mRNA technology. 
  • The province allows those who received the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine for their first dose to get either Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna for the second, or they can get another AstraZeneca vaccine shot.
  • Alberta Health Services says due to a booking error, about 2,400 appointments at the Genesis Centre COVID-19 immunization clinic in northeast Calgary on Monday and Tuesday are being rescheduled. Around 2,500 people had been booked for immunization at the centre on each of those days. 

You can see active cases by local health area on the following interactive map. Scroll, zoom and click on the map for more information:

See which regions are being hit hardest:

Here is the detailed regional breakdown of active cases as reported by the province on Friday.

  • Calgary zone: 470.
  • Edmonton zone: 134.
  • Central zone: 113.
  • South zone: 25.
  • North zone: 150.
  • Unknown: 3.

Here are the latest Alberta COVID-19 stories:

Corrections

  • An earlier version of this story included incomplete information about the number of tests performed on June 30 and July 1.
    Jul 05, 2021 5:26 PM MT

With files from The Canadian Press