Nearly one quarter of all Albertans have been tested for COVID-19

Alberta has now tested more than 1 million Albertans for COVID-19, and some have been tested more than once, Health Minister Tyler Shandro announced Monday.

A total of 1,001,638 individual Albertans have been tested, with a total of 1,320,550 tests completed overall.

Shandro said Alberta has been a leader with the most robust testing and the first to provide asymptomatic testing among the provinces. Alberta has also done more tests per-capita than most other provinces.

Nearly one quarter of all Albertans have now been tested, and the province is working to speed up the results.

Alberta Precision Labs, which processes the tests, has been averaging 13,000 tests a day and on one day in particular more than 18,000 were recorded.

There are currently 1,549 active cases of COVID-19 in the province, with 63 individuals hospitalized and 15 in ICU.

There have also been four deaths related to COVID-19 since Friday.

A total of five per cent of Alberta’s schools have outbreaks, with two confirmed cases in a school being considered an outbreak.

Alberta’s chief medical officer Dr. Deena Hinshaw addressed a sentiment that has been circulating that herd immunity would be the way to handle the pandemic.

Herd immunity is when 50 to 70 per cent of the population has been exposed to COVID providing a measure of protection from the virus spreading further. She said Alberta only stands at one per cent currently and she does not feel herd immunity is the correct approach. It is not possible to dictate how the virus will spread and the effect it will have on the most vulnerable.

Hinshaw says death is not the only severe outcome of COVID, but also hospitalization and the possibility of the health system being overloaded and not being able to cope with the usual requirements unrelated to COVID. She said we also do not know that having had COVID provides a robust immunity to getting it again.