No final decision on moving to next phase of reopening but 'key metric' met: Kenney

High COVID-19 spread in Alta. challenges relaunch Alberta once again has the most active COVID-19 cases per capita in Canada raising questions about moving to Step 3 of the relaunch plan.

EDMONTON — Alberta's premier fielded questions about further reopening at a news conference Thursday and while he said no final decision has been made, the province's key metric to move to Step 3 has been met.

"We have been under 300 hospitalizations now, I think about a month, maybe it's more like five weeks and so it's been pretty stable. It's clear that things have plateaued," Jason Kenney told reporters outside a south Edmonton pharmacy.

Kenney said government officials would be reviewing advice from Alberta's chief medical officer of health over the coming days and the cabinet COVID committee will meet Monday.

"If the province has under 300 people hospitalized with COVID-19 then that's the key metric to move towards a Step 3," he said.

According to the province's website, Step 3 could include easing of restrictions for indoor social gatherings, adult sports teams, youth recreation activities, movie theatres, museums and art galleries, places of worship, as well as casinos, racing centres and bingo halls.

On Wednesday, the province reported 262 Albertans hospitalized due to COVID-19 and 44 in intensive care.

"There have been little blips up and little blips down but basically the situation has been relatively stable," said Kenney. "We are concerned about some growth in variants of concern. Thankfully, so far, that has not become the dominant strain. It's at about 10 per cent of active cases."

'WE COULD GET INTO SERIOUS TROUBLE': DOCTOR WARNS OF RISKS OF FURTHER REOPENING

The co-chair of the Edmonton Zone Medical Staff Association said he worries about the indicators the province is using to make decisions on reopening.

"The hospitalizations tell us what was happening about three, four weeks ago whereas the other indicators we've spoken about such as the number of acute cases each day, new cases each day, the R-value, the doubling rate – all of those things are a much better indicator of what's happening now," Dr. Noel Gibney told CTV News Edmonton.

Gibney said that if you look at those indicators, Alberta is heading in the wrong direction.

"Even if we stay with the current restrictions in phase two we're – in all probability – heading for a surge in April into early May," he said.

New cases on Wednesday were 479 and active cases were 4,918.

The latest numbers moved Alberta into first place for active cases per capita among provinces and territories for the first time in months.

"If we add some more fuel to the fire we could get into serious trouble," Gibney said.

The doctor urged the government to be "very, very careful" as he believes opening up casinos, bingo halls and allowing indoor social gatherings could create "super spreader events."

"We're now racing this variant of the coronavirus with our vaccination program. And certainly we've done a good job with getting the long-term care residents in general vaccinated, some of the retirement homes are still lagging behind and those desperately need to be done," he said.