Alberta reports 391 new cases of COVID-19, 5 additional deaths

Alberta reported 391 new cases of COVID-19 on Sunday, and five more deaths.

The province continued to inch closer toward its reopening plan as hospitalizations continued to decrease Sunday, after falling below 500 hospitalizations on Saturday.

Alberta reported 446 people in hospital with the illness on Sunday (down 32 from Saturday). Of those, 138 were in intensive care unit beds.

Of the five additional deaths, four deaths involved women in Calgary, including one in her 40s and three in their 80s. One death occurred in the North zone. The deaths occured on Friday and Saturday. Alberta has now lost 2,219 people to COVID-19 since the pandemic began.

Provincial labs completed 6,586 tests for the disease on Saturday, for a positivity rate of around 6.1 per cent.

The province saw an overall drop of 401 total active cases, down to 8,073.

Here is how active cases breakdown by health zone:

• Calgary zone: 3,301
• Edmonton zone: 2,126
• North zone: 1,172
• Central zone: 974
• South zone: 496
• Unknown: 4

The province announced more than 60 per cent of eligible Albertans had received their first dose of vaccine on Friday, one of the benchmarks that could see Stage 2 of reopening begin as early as June 10, if hospitalizations continue to decrease.

The relaxation of public health orders under Stage 2 would see theatres, cinemas, museums and galleries reopen at a third of capacity and restaurants allowed to seat up to six people indoors from different households.

Outdoor social gatherings of up to 20 people would be permitted while concerts and festivals could go ahead with up to 150 people.

Stage 3 the removal of all restrictions is slated to begin two weeks after 70 per cent of eligible Albertans receive their first shot of vaccine with no metric for hospitalizations attached.

As of Saturday, 2,759,729 doses of vaccine had been administered.