Alberta will decide whether to enter the second stage of its economic relaunch Monday, further easing public health restrictions in some sectors.
The choice comes as Alberta emerges from a weekend that saw heightened COVID-19 positivity rates and dozens of new cases of more-contagious variants.
Some restrictions could be lifted in the areas of retail, banquet halls, community halls, conference centres and hotels, with revised measures potentially coming into effect the same day.
Alberta Health said it did not have details on what exactly those eased restrictions will look like, but confirmed a decision would be made Monday.
The potential step forward, which will be made by Alberta’s cabinet committee on COVID-19, will come exactly three weeks after Alberta entered the first stage of its phased reopening plan on Feb. 8. The three-week gap is in place to ensure officials can evaluate the full impacts of the previous stage.
John Graham, a director with the Retail Council of Canada representing the Prairie provinces, said Alberta retailers don’t need to see a dramatic increase to their allowed capacity.
Currently, these businesses must limit customer capacity to 15 per cent of fire code occupancy (not including staff) or a minimum of five customers.
“We’re hoping that we’ll see capacity increase in the 25 per cent-plus range, and that’s important from a consumer confidence perspective as much as it is for addressing demand issues in stores right now,” Graham said.
Even a slight easing of capacity limits in stores would send a significant message to consumers that they can safely return to brick-and-mortar businesses rather than shopping online, Graham argued.
The primary benchmark being used for determining whether to further lift restrictions is hospitalizations. Moving into the second stage of relaunch requires there to be 450 or fewer Albertans in hospital with COVID-19 and for that number to be declining; the province currently has 250 hospitalizations, the lowest count since Nov. 12.
On Friday, Alberta Health Minister Tyler Shandro said current trends likely support reopening but stressed experts would have to look at the full three weeks of data before making decisions.
He said even with eased restrictions, there will still be rules in place in targeted sectors.
“During each of these steps, the activities that have restrictions eased will still have restrictions on them,” Shandro said. “That’s an important thing for us to remember. We do have variants of concern in the province and we do have some community transmission.”
If restrictions need to be added back in, Shandro said, it would be based on a leading indicator like case rates rather than a lagging indicator like hospitalizations.
Any help for retailers would be welcome, Graham said, with hopes that vaccination rollout combined with relaxed restrictions can boost the industry.
“It’s putting tremendous pressure on businesses,” he said.
One area that won’t see eased restrictions Monday is indoor social gatherings, which remain banned. Rules in that area won’t be changed until at least three weeks after Stage 2 is enacted, according to the province.
Variant case counts climb over weekend
Alberta logged another 301 cases of the novel coronavirus on Sunday. The infections came from about 7,500 tests, representing a positivity rate of four per cent.
The cases followed 415 new cases tallied Saturday with a 4.5 per cent positivity rate.
The province detected another 30 cases of COVID-19 variants Saturday and 29 Sunday, all the B.1.1.7 strain that originated in the United Kingdom.
Variants make up more than eight per cent of the weekend’s cases. However, the new variant cases are not necessarily from these newly detected infections, as Alberta Health Services is conducting analysis of historical samples to identify the strains.
Another three deaths from COVID-19 were reported in Alberta, tied for the lowest single-day count logged in 2021. Alongside the six deaths reported Saturday, Alberta’s death toll now sits at 1,886.
Alberta now has 4,584 active cases of COVID-19, up from 4,484 before the start of the weekend.
Vaccination rates slowed slightly at the start of the weekend, but remain high since the province began vaccinating seniors in the community Wednesday.
Through end-of-day Saturday, Alberta has administered 227,678 doses of vaccine, 8,982 more than the previous day. The province had exceeded 11,000 daily jabs on both Thursday and Friday.
In total, 87,695 Albertans are fully immunized after receiving two doses of vaccine. More than four per cent of Alberta adults have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine. Canada’s three approved vaccines are not authorized for use in children or adolescents.
Twitter: @jasonfherring
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