Dr. Deena Hinshaw announced that Alberta is adopting aggressive new public health measures including asking organisers to cancel all events with more than 250 attendees to help limit the spread of COVID-19.
Events like large sporting events, conferences and community events will be cancelled. This does not extend to places of worship, grocery stores, airports or shopping centres.
Dr. Deena Hinshaw said that any event that has more than 50 attendees with international participants or involves critical infrastructure staff, seniors, or other high-risk populations should also be cancelled.
Events that do not meet these criteria can proceed but risk mitigation must be in place, such as sanitizer stations and distancing between attendees.
According to the news release, Alberta schools and daycares can remain open but steps should be taken to ensure that no more than 250 individuals are in the same room at any given time. The Ontario government has ordered all publicly funded schools to be shut down for two weeks after March Break,
All Albertans returning to the country are asked to self-isolate for 14 days after they return, no matter what country they visited. Dr Hinshaw said that the province is discouraging all out-of-country travel.
Four additional cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed in the province. All new cases are travel-related and are in the Calgary zone. The three newly confirmed cases involve a woman in her thirties, a male in his fifties, and a woman in her seventies. The travellers returned from travelling in Jordan, Egypt, France, Germany, and the United States, specifically Florida.
One of the new cases concerns a two-year-old child from Calgary. The child developed mild symptoms after the family returned from Florida vacation. The child tested positive for COVID-19. The child attended a downtown Calgary daycare from March 2-6 and tested positive on March 11. The daycare has temporarily closed to limit exposure to the virus. All close contacts are self-isolating for 14 days while being monitored by health officials.