Provincial officials announced today that a cautious move to Step Two of restriction easement will be made starting today, Monday, March 1.

  • Libraries will be allowed to reopen at 15% of fire-code capacity, not including staff
  • Masks mandatory inside libraries for staff and visitors
  • Fitness facilities will be allowed to reopen for low-intensity individual and group fitness activities which will be allowed indoors. Shandro explained, "Low-intensity" individual and group fitness activities, such as pilates, tai chi, and indoor climbing. [...] I know many Albertans are eager to get back to activities like running on the treadmill, high-intensity activities like that are still only allowed on a one-on-one basis with a trainer or for a household and one trainer."
  • Drop-in fitness is not allowed.
  • For complete details click here.

Other sectors that were hoping to get a green light like retail, hotels, community halls, and children’s sports will continue in a holding pattern. 

A decision on Step Three will be at least another three weeks. 

"COVID-19 is still here and it is still very much a threat to our health and our health care system," explained Premier Jason Kenney. "We're not out of the woods but we can continue taking small steps forwards."

The precautionary measure is due primarily to the increase of variant cases in the province. Today, Alberta saw another 35 cases of the UK variant reported for a total of 457 cases of that strain. 

There were 291 new cases of the original strain of COVID 19  reported today with a 4.9% positivity rate. There are 257 people in the hospital with 48 in ICU. 

Once again, Premier Kenney and Health Minister Shandro blamed the slow distribution of vaccines by the federal government as part of the reason for slowing the reopening.

To date, 235,5080 have been administered with over 88,000 Albertans being fully immunized.

Cochrane continues to hold at ten active cases while Rocky View County is reporting 19.