What you need to know about COVID-19 in Alberta on Monday, July 27

The latest:

• Eight more people have died due to COVID-19 in the province.
• Four women in their 90s and one woman in her 80s have died, linked to the Good Samaritan Southgate Care Centre in Edmonton. A man in his 80s has died, linked to Blue Sky Lodge. A man in his 80s in the south zone has died. And, a woman in her 80s in the Edmonton zone died in mid-May. Her death was determined in a post-mortem to be linked to COVID-19.
• The province says 304 people tested positive for COVID-19 over the weekend, bringing the province's total active cases to 1,430.
• There are 88 people in hospital, 17 of whom are in intensive care. 
• "The curve is no longer flat in Alberta," Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta's chief medical officer of health, said Monday. "The truth is … that COVID-19 is still here."
• The Calgary Board of Education is bracing for increased COVID-19 costs on a tight budget. 
• Red Deer hospital restricts visitors after COVID-19 outbreak.

What you need to know today in Alberta:

Speaking Monday, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, the province's chief medical officer of health, reminded Albertans that their individual actions do not only affect themselves. 

"When we don't take simple everyday precautions, we let one another down. When we have the mindset that the virus can't touch us or if it does, all that matters is we will personally recover, we let one another down. And that's not how Albertans are," she said.

"We have shown time and again that we are here to lift one another up. It is within our control to get our case numbers moving in a positive direction. We can get back to where we were just a month ago when we moved forward with relaunch because our active case numbers were low."

The effects of the virus are hanging over the Calgary Board of Education as it prepares for September classes with no additional funding to deal with COVID-19. 

The board chair Marilyn Dennis says the CBE did get more money this year compared to last under a new model, but is still below 2018-19 levels and has considerably more students. 

The regional breakdown of active cases across the province as of Monday was:

• Calgary zone: 730 cases.
• Edmonton zone: 279 cases.
• Central zone: 162 cases.
• South zone: 142 cases.
• North zone: 110 cases.
• Unknown: 7 cases.

• Find out which neighbourhoods or communities have the most cases, how hard people of different ages have been hit, the ages of people in hospital, how Alberta compares to other provinces and more in: Here are the latest COVID-19 statistics for Alberta — and what they mean

What you need to know today in Canada:

As more regions across the country — including Calgary — adopt mandatory masking policies, some anti-masking groups are joining forces with anti-vaccination proponents and adopting their techniques to spread misinformation and amplify their message. 

Hundreds of thousands of Canadians could get a tax break for working from home during the pandemic. Tax experts are calling on the government to clarify the rules for the "work-space-in-the-home" deduction.

You can claim it if you work from home more than 50 per cent of the time, or if you have a separate home office and use it to meet clients.

As of 8:45 a.m. ET on Monday, Canada had 113,911 confirmed and presumptive coronavirus cases. Provinces and territories listed 99,355 of the cases as recovered or resolved. A CBC News tally based on provincial reports, regional health information and CBC's reporting indicates that 8,919 Canadians have died.

Self-assessment and supports:

Alberta Health Services has an online self-assessment tool that you can use to determine if you have symptoms of COVID-19, but testing is open to anyone, even without symptoms. 

The province says Albertans who have returned to Canada from other countries must self-isolate. Unless your situation is critical and requires a call to 911, Albertans are advised to call Health Link at 811 before visiting a physician, hospital or other health-care facility.

If you have symptoms, even mild, you are to self-isolate for at least 10 days from the onset of symptoms, until the symptoms have disappeared. 

You can find Alberta Health Services' latest coronavirus updates here.

The province also operates a confidential mental health support line at 1-877-303-2642 and addiction help line at 1-866-332-2322, available from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., seven days a week. 

Online resources are available for advice on handling stressful situations and ways to talk with children.

There is a 24-hour family violence information line at 310-1818 to get anonymous help in more than 170 languages, and Alberta's One Line for Sexual Violence is available at 1-866-403-8000, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.