Banff 
Alberta Health Services is reporting 1,440 cases since Friday, October 23 and seven more COVID-19 related deaths in the province including one person in his 100s linked to the outbreak at Millwoods Shepherds Care Centre in Edmonton Zone.
Currently, there are 4,477 active cases, with 118 in hospital including 16 in intensive care.
There were 364 new cases on Friday, 572 on Saturday, and 504 on Sunday.
The seven deaths over the weekend bring the total fatalities to 307.
Credit: Alberta.ca
Alberta chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw said, “You have heard me say many times that we need to achieve a balance between minimizing the risk of COVID-19 and minimizing the risk of harms of restrictions.”
“This requires us to keep the spread of COVID-19 manageable. We have now crossed a tipping point and are losing the balance we have been seeking. This weekend’s COVID-19 numbers tell the story clearly. We identified on average 480 cases of COVID-19 per day over the weekend.”
Dr. Hinshaw also announced a new mandatory limit in Calgary and Edmonton of 15 people on social gatherings where people are mixing and mingling. This includes parties, special event celebrations, such as retirement events or baby showers, wedding and funeral receptions, and banquets.
This limit does not apply to structured events where socializing is not the purpose of the activity. This includes restaurants, worship services, wedding ceremonies, conferences, funeral services or trade shows. This temporary limit will be reassessed at the end of November 2020. It will be lifted when the new case numbers are down to sufficiently reduce the spread.
