Premier Kenney has announced Alberta is moving back to Step 1, effective April 7 (midnight tonight).
It was decided that the step back was necessary in order to curb the rapidly rising cases of COVID-19 and variants of concern in the province.
"We averaged almost 1,000 new COVID cases a day over the long weekend. The surge of variants went from 100 new cases a day three weeks ago to 676 new cases today. Variants are consistently over half of the new cases and 40% of active cases." says Kenney, "These variants are a real enemy of public health and of lives."
Starting at midnight April 7
- Retail services must reduce customer capacity to 15 per ent of fire code occupancy, with a minimum of five customers permitted.
- Curbside pickup, delivery and online services are encouraged.
- Shopping malls will be limited to 15 percent of fire code occupancy.
Indoor fitness
- Only one-on-one training with an individual or household is permitted for indoor fitness activities
- No drop-in activities or unsupervised individual fitness.
- Group fitness, high or low intensity, is not allowed.
- Outdoor physical activity is allowed with up to 10 people, provided physical distancing is maintained between households.
Adult performance activities
- Adult performance activities are not permitted. Performance activities include dancing, singing, acting, playing a musical instrument and any rehearsal or theatrical performances.
Additional restrictions for restaurants take effect on April 9 at noon in which indoor in-person service will no longer be permitted
- Takeout, curbside pickup and delivery services are permitted.
- Outdoor patio dining is also allowed. Tables and dining parties must be two metres apart or separated by an impermeable barrier that will prevent droplet transmission.
- Household members only, or two close contacts of someone who lives alone.
- Contact information must be collected from one person of the dining party.
Step 1 restrictions will remain in place until further notice.
For more details go to alberta.ca
The COVID-19 numbers for Tuesday, April 6 were as follows.
- There were 931 new cases of COVID-19 identified in the past 24 hours with 9,100 tests were performed for a positivity rate of 10.2%.
- There were 676 new cases of variants of concern identified.
- There are 328 people in hospital.
- Three additional deaths were reported which caused Alberta to surpass the grim milestone of a total of 2,001 deaths in the province.
- Cochrane added one more case for a total of 83 active cases.
- Rocky View County added one case for a total of 141 active cases.