■ ACTIVE CASES,

Active cases of COVID -19 in Alberta are nine times higher than they were a month ago.

Alberta had 5,354 active cases of the novel coronavirus by Monday, up from 579 on July 16, provincial data shows. The Edmonton Zone's active cases are 11 times higher. Alberta has both the highest rate and highest overall number of active cases in the country.

Serious cases of the disease haven't grown at the same rate. But with 161 Albertans hospitalized with COVID-19 by Monday — including 43 in intensive care — this is about 1.5 times higher than the same time last month.

Another 1,407 cases of COVID -19 were reported in Alberta over the previous three days, including 564 on Friday, 451 on Saturday, and 392 on Sunday.

Cases have risen steadily beginning two weeks after the province lifted nearly all public health restrictions July 1. Before that, numbers were in decline for more than two months after reaching the peak of the third wave in early May.

The highest share of active cases are in the Calgary and Edmonton areas — there were 1,989 active cases in the Calgary Zone and 1,431 in the Edmonton Zone by Monday.

More than 81 per cent of Alberta's active cases are variants of concern. Another 1,215 variant cases were discovered Sunday.

Meantime, Edmonton city council on Monday asked staff to draft suggestions for masking bylaw amendments that could be put in place after Sept. 27 — when Alberta is set to end mandatory masking on transit — that could be triggered if certain conditions are met.

Council moved the masking discussion after the province on Friday delayed plans to halt COVID -19 testing, tracing and isolation requirements from Aug. 16 to Sept. 27 amid mounting public pressure and criticism from medical professionals.

Also responding to the shift, NDP health critic MLA David Shepherd on Monday called on the province to release the modelling it relied on for both the initial and revised end dates to COVID -19 measures.

“Albertans are right to ask why Jason Kenney has chosen an arbitrary end date to most public health-care measures instead of tying them to successfully reaching benchmarks, such as hospitalizations, ICU admissions or vaccination rates,” Shepherd said.

“Indeed, those are the very indicators Dr. Hinshaw said she wanted to monitor over the next six weeks.”

Hinshaw said Friday the rise in hospitalizations and increase in children getting sick from COVID-19 in the United States means Alberta needs more time to monitor the situation. She said hospitalizations were 62 per cent higher than expected.

Masks are required on public transit, taxis and other ride-sharing until Sept. 27.