Alberta reports 23 new COVID-19 cases — lowest daily number in 13 months

Public health officials added one more COVID-19 death to Alberta's toll as they reported the province's lowest daily total of COVID-19 cases in over a year.

A woman in her 80s residing in the North zone, who died in late November, has been added to the province's COVID-19 death toll. There can be a delay in a death being reported to Alberta Health, or in a death being confirmed post-mortem as having COVID-19 as a contributing cause.

The total number of COVID-19 deaths remains at 2,307, however, as one previously reported death was discovered post-mortem to not have COVID-19 as a contributing cause.

Meanwhile, public health officials reported 23 new cases of COVID-19 Thursday. That's the lowest single-day total since 22 new cases were reported on June 6, 2020.

Alberta labs also detected 69 cases of variants of concern, bringing the number of known active variant cases to 446.

Active COVID-19 cases continue to drop, now standing at 697 — the lowest since July 12 of last year.

Here's how active cases break down across the province's health regions:

• Calgary zone: 353
• North zone: 126
• Edmonton zone: 124
• Central zone: 74
• South zone: 18
• Unknown: 2

The number of hospitalizations in Alberta dropped by seven since Wednesday. There are 133 people being treated for COVID-19 in hospital, including 32 in intensive care units.

There were 5,897 COVID-19 tests conducted Wednesday. The test-positivity rate sits around 0.88 per cent.

Another 42,627 doses of COVID-19 vaccine were administered throughout Alberta Wednesday.

As of the latest update, 73.7 per cent of the eligible population has received at least one dose of vaccine, while 52 per cent have had both shots.