Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw is warning the province that if current case rates and hospitalizations continue to trend upward, more restrictions may have to be put in place.

“Hospitalizations are increasing province-wide and cases continue to rise sharply. My team is monitoring closely and if we do not see growth slowing soon. Further measures may be required,” said Hinshaw.

The doctor noted that a lot of spread has been occurring in school aged children.

“We are seeing a sharp rise in cases in school aged Albertans as well as those in all other age groups. While there are no risk free options that have with COVID-19 the rise we’ve seen is not attributed to any single cause and in fact is often linked to social gatherings outside school rather than transmission within classrooms,” said Hinshaw.

Dr. Hinshaw expects that restrictions will be able to lifted in the summer months as long as Albertans take care to lower the rate of infection for the current third wave.

“We need to make sure that we don’t wait too long. We cannot wait three weeks and watch. We have to make sure that were watching within the coming week to ten days about what those cases look like and consider if our trajectory continues on a steep upward climb whether those additional measures will be needed,” said Hinshaw.

The doctor notes that every health zone in Alberta has seen a significant increase in cases recently. She encourages Albertans to follow the current the restrictions in place to fight the rising numbers.

April 13th new case numbers:


  • 1,081 new cases of the virus for April 12th
  • 15,087 active cases in Alberta
  • 402 people are hospitalized
  • 88 people admitted to ICUs
  • 3 new deaths reported in the last 24 hours
  • 2,021 total deaths from the virus
  • 7,910 active case variants in Alberta (843 in the Central Zone)
  • Variants of concern make up 52.4 per cent of active cases

Active case numbers in the Central Alberta area:


  • 60 active cases in the City of Lacombe
  • 65 active cases in the County of Lacombe
  • 275 active cases in the City of Red Deer
  • 70 active cases in the County of Red Deer
  • 185 active cases in the County of Ponoka
  • 36 active cases in the Town of Sylvan Lake
  • 10 active cases in the County of Stettler
  • 45 active cases in the County of Mountain View

**Not all cases in the Central Zone have been included.