Everything you need to know about COVID-19 in Alberta on Monday, May 10

The latest on vaccines:

• Alberta began offering COVID-19 vaccines to anyone 12 and over as of Monday as the provincial vaccine rollout advances to Phase 3.
• As of May 6, every Albertan 30 or older (born in 1991 or earlier), was able to book an appointment through AHS or a participating pharmacy.
• As of 2:30 p.m., more than 112,153 Albertans had booked immunization appointments on Monday with another 45,000 still queued online waiting to book.
• Premier Jason Kenney says Montana will provide Johnson & Johnson shots to truckers crossing the border starting on May 10. The deal is similar to earlier agreements signed between Manitoba, Saskatchewan and North Dakota and is expected to affect approximately 2,000 truckers. 
• Alberta Health said on April 30 that the vast majority of doses of the province's supply of AstraZeneca-Oxford have now been administered or booked. Existing bookings will be honoured.
• 1,916,957 vaccine doses have been administered in Alberta, including Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca-Oxford.
• 35.2 per cent of Albertans have received at least one dose vaccine as of May 10.
• 318,841 Albertans have been fully immunized (2 doses). That's about seven per cent of the population.

(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 COVID-19 numbers:

• Alberta reported 1,597 new COVID-19 cases on Monday and seven more deaths from the illness.
• Across the province there were 25,438 active cases, which was the highest active-case rate, per capita, of all provinces and territories.
• The test positivity rate was 11.5 per cent, up from 10.5 per cent the previous day.
• There were 690 people in hospital with COVID-19, including 158 people in intensive care. 
• There have now been 2,117 deaths recorded in Alberta from COVID-19. 
• The latest R-value reported for the province was 1, meaning the virus is spreading to one person for each confirmed case. 
• 182,832 Albertans have recovered from COVID-19. 
• Currently, 857 schools, about 33 per cent of all schools in Alberta, are on alert or have outbreaks. In-school transmission is believed to have occurred in 729 schools.

The latest on restrictions:

• Alberta's Justice Minister Kaycee Madu said on May 5 that fines for defying provincial public health orders will double to $2,000 and introduced what he called a new enforcement protocol to target people not complying with orders. 
• "We will not permit our health-care system to be overwhelmed," Kenney said Wednesday, adding that could happen in a matter of weeks if case growth doesn't slow. 
• On Saturday, Calgary police arrested two organizers of a church service who have been defying public health restrictions for months and charged them with organizing an illegal in-person gathering.
• The full list of current restrictions is available on the province's website.
• All K-12 students in the province have moved to online learning until May 25, after the May long weekend. The premier said 80,000 students and staff are already in self-isolation. All post-secondary classes will also move online.
• Workplaces with COVID-19 outbreaks now must close for 10 days, unless they are essential workplaces.
• Restaurants must move to take-out only, meaning patios must close. 
• Retail will be limited to 10 per cent of fire code occupancy. 
• Outdoor social gatherings will be limited to five people, and you are recommended to limit gatherings to a maximum of two different family cohorts. 
• Places of worship are limited to 15 people and funerals are limited to 10 people. 
• All indoor fitness activities must close, as well as hair salons and nail salons.
• Outdoor sports are limited to household and close contacts only. 
• Golf courses can remain open, but golfers must only play with people from their own household, or if they live alone, with their two close contacts.
• The new public health measures apply to all parts of Alberta except those with fewer than 50 cases per 100,000 people and fewer than 30 active cases.

WATCH | Dr. Deena Hinshaw urges Albertans to heed the new restrictions:

No more mingling, urges Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta chief medical officer of health

4 years ago

Duration 1:40

Alberta doesn’t know if it has hit the peak of new COVID-19 cases, which is why Albertans must heed restrictions to avoid in-person contact, says Dr. Deena Hinshaw.

The latest on more dangerous variants:

• As of May 1, Alberta Health stopped screening all positive specimens for variants of concern.
• Instead, it is now limiting screening to hospitalized and emergency room patients, patients involved in outbreaks, health-care workers and recent international travelers.
• The province said the move was necessary in order to free up capacity in laboratories, which had been falling behind in basic positive/negative testing for COVID-19.
• Testing all samples also became less instructive, once it became clear variants had already taken over.
• On May 6, Dr. Hinshaw said "variants are now, and will continue to be, the dominant strain in our province," and that "we should all assume that every new case is a variant of concern."
• "Our labs will continue monitoring the spread of variants," Hinshaw added. "They are screening a representative sample of positive cases every day for variants of concern."

See which regions are being hit hardest:

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

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

• Calgary zone: 11,539 active cases, up from 11,312 reported on Sunday (72,788 recovered).
• Edmonton zone: 5,944, up from 5,917 (65,586 recovered).
• North zone: 3,762, up from 3,749 (19,239 recovered).
• South zone: 1,335, up from 1,333 (9,912 recovered).
• Central zone: 2,807, down from 2,844 (15,289 recovered).
• Unknown: 51, up from 42 (18 recovered).

Find out which neighbourhoods or communities have the most cases, how hard people of different ages have been hit, the ages of people in hospital, how Alberta compares to other provinces and more in: Here are the latest COVID-19 statistics for Alberta — and what they mean.

Here are the latest Alberta COVID-19 stories:

How Alberta compares to other provinces and territories: