Everything you need to know about COVID-19 in Alberta on Monday, July 5

The latest COVID-19 numbers

• Alberta reported 139 new cases of COVID-19 over the weekend:
  • 42 cases on July 2, out of 3,928 tests.
  • 53 cases on July 3, out of 4,208 tests,
  • 44 cases on July 4, out of 4,263 tests. 
• Alberta's chief medical officer of health, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, delivered her final regularly scheduled briefing on COVID-19 on June 29. From that point on, Hinshaw said she might still provide updates on the pandemic but only when they are needed, adding that cases and vaccination numbers would no longer be reported on weekends, and reproduction values (R-values) will shift to two-week intervals.
• There are 831 active COVID-19 cases and the positivity rate is 1.12 per cent. 
• There were 136 people in hospital in Alberta, and of those 32 were in intensive care units.
• Alberta reported two more deaths, for a total of 2,303. 
• 229,102 Albertans are considered to have recovered from COVID-19.
• The latest R-value was 0.75, meaning the virus is spreading to fewer than one person for each confirmed case. That number has slightly decreased from the previous week.

The latest on restrictions and reopenings:

• Alberta entered Stage 3 of its three-stage reopening plan on July 1. That meant:
  • All restrictions were lifted, including the ban on indoor social gatherings.
  • Even though the general indoor provincial mask mandate was lifted, but masking might still be required in limited settings or if certain communities continue it under local bylaws.
• Calgary city council voted to rescind its mandatory mask mandate on Monday, but the change won't come into force just yet. Coun. Druh Farrell withheld consent for third reading of the bylaw change, meaning it won't be the law until that happens. Once the bylaw is changed, it will bring the city in line with most other municipalities across Alberta as well as new provincial rules.
• Edmonton dropped its mandatory mask bylaw on July 1.
• Banff ended outdoor masking on June 30 and indoor masking on July 1.
• As of Monday, fully vaccinated Canadians and permanent residents are able to skip the 14-day quarantine upon arrival in Canada, but it remains unclear when the border restrictions will lift for other travellers.
• Canadians and permanent residents who are fully vaccinated will need to show documents proving they received doses of vaccines approved in Canada at least 14 days prior to entering the country.
• Officials said travellers must electronically submit COVID-19-related information to the government's ArriveCAN app before arriving, meet the pre- and on-arrival test requirements, be asymptomatic and have a suitable quarantine plan.

(Note the latest daily count of new cases in the above chart will usually vary slightly from the net new cases Alberta Health announces each day. For more on why, click here.)

The latest on vaccines:

• Alberta has changed how it reports the percentage of Albertans who have been vaccinated. It is now measuring the total population using Statistics Canada data from July 2020. 
• 41.1 per cent of all Albertans have been fully vaccinated, and 62.4 per cent of the total population has been vaccinated with one dose (73.4 per cent of those ages 12 and up). 
• Alberta has administered 4,578,868 doses of COVID-19 vaccine, including Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca-Oxford.
• Anyone who received their first mRNA (Pfizer or Moderna) dose in May or earlier can book their second dose of COVID-19 vaccine. Also, anyone who received a first mRNA dose in June can also now book their second dose once four weeks have passed since their first shot.
• Alberta is offering $3 million in lottery winnings to encourage more people to get a COVID-19 vaccine. All Albertans aged 18 and over who have had at least one dose are eligible to be entered in the draw. To register, eligible Albertans must fill out their information at alberta.ca/lottery. The first winner was Tracey McIvor, who lives in Langdon, 30 kilometres east of Calgary.

You can see active cases by local health area on the following interactive map. Scroll, zoom and click on the map for more information:

See which regions are being hit hardest:

Here is the detailed regional breakdown of active cases as reported by the province on Monday:

• Calgary zone: 424.
• Edmonton zone: 132.
• Central zone: 100.
• South zone: 25.
• North zone: 149.
• Unknown: 1.

Here are the latest Alberta COVID-19 stories: