Alberta to report COVID-19 data once a week

Extended: COVID-19 update for March 16, 2022 Health Minister Jason Copping and Dr. Deena Hinshaw gave a COVID-19 update on Wednesday, March 16.

Alberta has announced it will only report COVID-19 data on Wednesdays going forward.

The province will also hold a weekly COVID-19 press conference on Wednesdays.

"Alberta is going through a period of transition. As we shift out of crisis mode and move toward endemic response, we can make adjustments to the way we operate," Health Minister Jason Copping said.

"We're at a point where trends over longer periods of time are more relevant than day-to-day fluctuations."

For the last two years, the province has updated its website on weekdays with daily data such as new and active cases, deaths, hospitalizations and vaccinations.

The frequency of live COVID-19 updates has varied since March of 2020, from every day to a few times a week, or none at all when Alberta opened for summer.

Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw said weekly reporting is "the right thing to do."

"Reducing the frequency of reporting is what makes the most sense in our current situation," Hinshaw said.

"As we go forward, COVID-19 will be one of likely several respiratory viruses that we need to be tracking and monitoring, so one of the things we're looking at is an ability to regularly report on respiratory viruses and the picture of what that looks like in the province."

LATEST NUMBERS

The province has 6,449 known active cases after it reported 593 infections from PCR tests.

COVID-19 cases are likely much higher due to testing limits and because the province does not count results from take-home rapid tests.

There are 989 people in hospital with the disease, including 70 in intensive care.

"It does not appear that easing measures has caused an uptick in numbers since we entered Step 1 on Feb. 8," Copping said.

"We continue to see a decline or plateau in both our lagging and leading indicators."