Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw announced that the province would not be lifting any COVID-19 restrictions today as originally intended. 

“While our hospitalizations have decreased significantly from the peak, they remain high. To put this in perspective, despite the progress we’ve made there’s just as many COVID patients in hospital today as there were on December 8th. This means that our health system continues to experience significant strains and we must ease this burden as quickly as possible. 

As we head into the weekend, Hinshaw asks Albertans to continue to take the ongoing COVID-19 measures seriously. 

She noted that length of the extension of ongoing health measures will depend on how the province works to keep the numbers going down to ease the burden on the healthcare system. 

January 21st new case numbers:

  • 678 new cases of the virus for January 20th
  • 10,256 active cases in Alberta 
  • 726 people are hospitalized
  • 119 people admitted to ICUs 
  • 16 new deaths in the last 24 hours
  • 1,500 total deaths from the virus 

Screenshot courtesy of COVID-19 Alberta statistics at Alberta.ca.

Active case numbers in Central Alberta area:

  • 22 active cases in the City of Lacombe 
  • 21 active cases in the County of Lacombe 
  • 173 active cases in the City of Red Deer
  • 38 active cases in the County of Red Deer
  • 279 active cases in the County of Ponoka
  • 21 active cases in the Town of Sylvan Lake 
  • 5 active cases in the County of Stettler 
  • 20 active cases in the County of Mountain View

**Not all cases in the Central Zone have been included.