Thread by @anonfmresident

Good Morning #AbLeg I am officially calling it. 3rd wave has begun in AB. I hope I am wrong and it certainly may be truncated if Bumbles is able to handle vaccinations. Three factors in my call 1) decline has ended and is leveling. 2)Spread in Schools. 3) variants of concern.

As teachers/students are low priority we start there. @SOSAlberta (change last 24hrs)
Schools with/had COVID cases 1248 (+1)
Last 2 weeks 288 (+1)
One case or Pre-Alert 93 (-3)
Alert (2-4) 112 (+5)
Tier 1 Outbreak (4-9) 53 (-1)
Lagrange Lvl Outbreak (10+) 29
Closed 23

Active cases 1199 (+33)
Transmissions 205 (+3)

Currently 12% of school are on Alert or designated as an outbreak and this is trending up. Among 5-19 year olds infections are at 32% of Dec peak and trending up. Currently there are at least 70 variant cases in schools.

Yesterday's stats suggest the decline has stopped and a slight upward trend suggesting the winter wave has ended and we are seeing a new one.
39,622 Total cases
479 new cases (+124)
1,956 Deaths (+4)
4,918 Active cases (+442)
262 In hospital (+2)
44 ICU

Significant one day increases in both new cases and active cases. However, this may be the result of "inconsistencies" in testing which fluctuate wildly
Weekly average (trend)
New cases 390 (+)
Deaths 3.8 (steady)
Active cases (++)
In Hospital (+)
ICU (+)

Variants of concern (largest factor and risk in third wave)
B.1.1.7 (UK variant) 1,078 (+50)
B.1.351 (South African variant) 17
P.1 (Brazilian variant) 2
Total 1097

The B.1.1.7 variant is now well established in Alberta and yesterday accounted for 50 of 479 (10%) of new cases. As a new variant there is a lot of unknowns but info to date suggest B.1.1.7 spreads much easier and has a higher risk of complications requiring hospitalization.