Alberta Premier Jason Kenney announced 239 new and probable cases of coronavirus bringing the provincial total to 2,397 cases. There are now 1,124 people who have recovered from the illness. No new deaths were reported during the update. 

“There has been a substantial increase in cases in the last few days because we have once again been stepping up testing and that is a good thing. We have been increasing testing 3,331 tests in the last 24 hours alone,” explained the Premier. 

The province’s goal is to ramp up testing and eventually get to 20,000 COVID-19 tests each day.  

During the update, Kenney announced AHS would begin testing all residents and staff of continuing care facilities whether or not they are symptomatic to maintain possible outbreaks in those facilities. 

In the near future, the province hopes to offer asymptomatic regular testing to essential workers of outbreak sites.  

“All workers from all companies at outbreak sites will have access to testing. Our capacity to increase testing both in the symptomatic general population and the asymptomatic essential worker population is growing quickly,” said Premier Kenney. 

Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Deena Hinshaw announced during the update that the province’s data systems have been repaired following the small electrical fire on Tuesday, April 14th.  

Heading forward, as the province prepares relaunch strategies protecting continuing care facilities and the province’s elderly generation will be Alberta’s first priority. 

To read more about this update, click here. 

Central Alberta shows the following case numbers, available at alberta.ca. 

  • City of Lacombe: 2 total cases
    • 0 active
    • 2 recovered
  • Lacombe County: 4 total cases
    • 0 active
    • 4 recovered
  • Ponoka County: 1 total cases 
    • 0 active
    • 1 recovered 
  • County of Wetaskiwin: 0 total cases
    • 0 active
    • 0 recovered
  • City of Wetaskiwin: 7 total cases
    • 0 active
    • 7 recovered
  • Red Deer County: 12 total cases 
    • 2 active
    • 10 recovered 
  • City of Red Deer: 33 total cases 
    • 10 active
    • 23 recovered 
  • County of Stettler: 4 total cases
    • 3 active
    • 1 recovered 
  • Mountain View County: 5 total cases
    • 0 active
    • 5 recovered

Other data about the COVID-19 case counts in Alberta are as follows: 

  • 2,397 cases in total 
  • 1,124 recoveries 
  • 50 deaths
  • 400 of the total cases are suspected to be a result of community transmission 3,331 COVID-19 tests have been performed in the last 24 hours (As of the announcement on April 17th)