COVID-19

Hockey season is back in Northwestern Ontario and with that the return of hockey tournaments.

Tournaments are the time for family and friends, along with others from many other communities to gather and take in some hockey.

The Northwestern Health Unit has brought forward a COVID-19 safety plan for this hockey tournament season to keep people safe and protected.

Alberta has reported 466 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours with a positivity rate of 4.1 per cent. 

Hospitalizations have dropped once again by 17 to 660.

ICU admissions have decreased by five to 141. 

Sadly, another five people have passed away from the virus bringing the total in the province to 3,142.

To date, 87.3 per cent of the provincial population have now received one shot of COVID vaccine and 80.9 per cent are fully immunized. 

Cochrane now has 74 active COVID-19 cases and Rocky View County 75.

Cochrane schools status:

The province says they are working on modernizing care homes, something that contributed to last fall's serious outbreak situations.

Manitoba's overall COVID-19 test rates continue to steadily drop. 

Out of Friday's 130 new cases, 80 people are not vaccinated, seven people are partially vaccinated, and 43 people are fully vaccinated.

Manitoba's five-day test positivity rate is 4.7 per cent. There are now a total of 64,209 COVID-19 cases in Manitoba with 1,147 of those being active.

The Northwestern Health Unit has reported one new case of COVID-19 in the Kenora region.

This brings the active case count to five in the region.

Provincewide, 563 new cases of COVID-19 were reported on Friday. The highest single-day case count since October 9.

Follow up with the person involved and their contacts have started according to protocol. Anyone who is identified as a contact for this case will be contacted directly.

One region's COVID-19 test rate is almost triple the provincial average, consistently seeing high rates this fall.

Southern Health is the outlier when comparing the five-day test positivity rate. As of Wednesday, the rate is 14.5 per cent, whereas on the same day Manitoba's rate was 4.9 per cent. Winnipeg's rate is the lowest, hovering at two per cent Wednesday.

The Parliament in Ottawa resumes on November 22, 2021, after a long break following the 2021 federal election.

The latest statistics show 95.3 per cent of federal employees have received the COVID-19 vaccine.

Back on October 6, 2021, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau put in place a mandatory vaccine policy for all federal employees and Canadian Armed Forces members that came into effect on October 30, 2021.

The Minister of Finance Peter Bethlenfalvy released the government's Fall Economic Statement yesterday (November 4, 2021).

The statement outlined the government's plan to strengthen the health care industry, build critical infrastructure, and invest in the workforce.

The COVID-19 numbers continue to trend in the right direction on Thursday, November 4.

As of November 3, 2021 the City of Grande Prairie has 133 active cases of COVID-19, and the County of Grande Prairie has 51 cases.

Cases of COVID-19 across the rest of the province sit at 6,515 active cases. 

Hospitalizations are currently at 677, and a total of 146 Albertans are in intensive care receiving treatment.