Alberta set another pair of unenviable records for COVID-19 cases yesterday (May 1) when 2,433 new cases were reported.  

That marks three days in a row of case counts higher than 2,000 in the province and is the highest number of new cases recorded in Alberta since the start of the pandemic.  It also established a new high for active cases at 22,504 which is 676 higher than on Friday.  

20,547 tests were conducted in Alberta bringing our positivity rate to nearly 12 per cent.  Variants of concern accounted for 1,743 of the new cases and now make up 62.1 per cent of all active cases in Alberta.  

Cochrane's active case count is currently at 183, up from 177 on Friday. 

In Airdrie, active cases climbed to 404 which brings the city's case rate to 560.5 per 100,000 population.  Airdrie has been declared a COVID-19 hot spot and falls under new, targetted health measures unveiled Thursday by the government.  Those measures include a ban on all indoor fitness activities as well as youth and adult indoor physical activities, including team sports and one-on-one training sessions which went into effect on Friday.

Starting tomorrow, all grade 7 to 12 students in Airdrie will shift to online learning for a minimum of two weeks.

The new restrictions apply to municipalities or regions where there are at least 350 cases per 100,000 people and a minimum of 250 active cases.

Rocky View County does not quite meet that criteria as yesterday there were 221 active cases reported.  However, should case counts continue to rise, RVC may fall under the restrictions in the future as their rate of cases per 100,000 is 493.6.

Another Albertan died from COVID-19 for a total of 2,083 deaths. The number of people in the hospital battling the disease dropped by three to 646 while those in the ICU remained steady from Friday's number of 152. 

As of Friday, the province had given out 1,597,666 doses of COVID-19 vaccines.  Around 29 per cent of people have now received at least one dose and about 6.7 per cent of the Alberta population is fully vaccinated.