COVID cases on the rise in South Zone

By Medicine Hat News on April 23, 2020.

As of Wednesday morning…

Medicine Hat News

In the last two weeks the number of COVID cases in Alberta has doubled and in the south zone it has gone from 26 to 200 cases, according to Alberta Health numbers on Wednesday morning.

The most significant change for the south zone is the number of COVID-19 cases in Brooks. That number was 102 on Sunday, 115 on Monday and by Wednesday morning it was 157. Some of those numbers stem from an outbreak at the JBS meat processing plant in Brooks. There is also an outbreak at a seniors facility in Brooks.

Brooks Mayor Barry Morishita told the News this week there were also issues of community spread because not everyone was following social distancing.

At a Medicine Hat city briefing this week it emerged officials had been made aware of the Brooks outbreak by Alberta Health Services last week. An increase in numbers is expected but it comes down to people following guidelines in order to manage the pandemic, a city official said.

There were 1,451 cases of COVID-19 in Alberta on April 9 and by April 22 that number was 3,095.

In the Calgary zone, since April 9, the number of cases has gone from 878 to 2,204 and the Edmonton zone from 376 to 446.

The total number of deaths in the province in the same time frame has gone from 32 to 61.

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