Alberta COVID-19 active cases and hospitalizations trending down, announce changes to rapid test program

According to the health minister, the provincial rate of hospitalization has decreased by one-quarter since the peak, despite Thursday's number of people in hospital representing the pandemic's ninth-highest total.

Alberta's health minister said the province is seeing the number of active cases and the number of people being admitted to hospital for COVID-19 treatment decrease.

On Thursday, the province reported 1,363 new confirmed infections of the disease after completing just under 5,000 tests. There are now 25,339 confirmed active cases, representing a decline by almost two-thirds from January's peak of 71,600 cases.

That gives Alberta a positivity rate of about 29.3 per cent, based only on PCR confirmed tests. Limits to testing capacity and eligibility mean the actual number of cases is likely many times higher.

Twenty-two more deaths from COVID-19 were reported on Thursday, raising the pandemic total to 3,718.

There are 1,586 people with COVID-19 in hospital, including 126 in intensive care units.

The province says only four out of 2,500 schools have temporarily shifted to online learning due to staffing pressures.

According to Health Minister Jason Copping, those numbers are an encouraging sign that the Omicron wave has peaked in Alberta.