Kenney, Copping, Hinshaw to give rescheduled COVID update Wednesday morning
Posted December 15, 2021 8:00 am.
Last Updated December 15, 2021 8:55 am.
Alberta’s premier, health minister, and chief medical office of health will give a COVID-19 update Wednesday morning after Tuesday’s update was cancelled.
Jason Kenney, Jason Copping, and Dr. Deena Hinshaw will all be at the 9 a.m. health briefing.
It’s unclear what specifically the premier and health minister will be discussing, but it’s possible more information regarding restrictions and rapid tests is on the docket.
Kenney told reporters last week he expects the province to reach a goal of no more than 173 ICU beds early this week.
“That’s why we think it is the right time for us to potentially move forward with some modest, common sense relaxation of measures for Christmas holidays,” he said.
READ MORE: Open for Christmas? Alberta Premier teases easing of measures for holidays
Kenney said he personally has plans to gather with three family members from three households which wouldn’t be allowed under current public health protocols.
He added that the province would have to be very careful with how it approaches the easing of measures as the new Omicron variant makes its way into the province.
Twenty new cases of the Omicron variant were found in Alberta on Tuesday and eight new COVID-19 deaths were reported.
Meantime, Kenney also said there would be some kind of announcement this week about distributing more rapid tests to Albertans, but didn’t go into detail.
Advocates across the province have been calling for access to free tests as testing an entire family can be quite costly, but getting your hands on rapid tests is getting easier, and for some, they hold the key to seeing family as a lot of children are still unprotected.
READ MORE: Will rapid tests be enough to get the whole family around the same table this holiday season?
“Rapid tests could be pretty useful because the timing of when vaccines were available was still pretty recent,” Wing Li with Support Our Students Alberta told CityNews Calgary in a previous interview.
“With the new variant now growing in the province, it’s just a confluence of a lot of factors that we should be using every tool possible to lessen the blow.”
-with files from Josh Ritchie and Kristy Kilburn
