Alberta confirmed a further 4,752 cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday.
As the province no longer offers widespread PCR testing, that number is likely to be higher.
Within the last 24 hours, the province has administered about 12,000 tests. The positivity rate was 36.9 per cent.
Wednesday’s daily case numbers and positivity rate were both record high, according to Dr. Deena Hinshaw.
“I know that the rapid spread of Omicron has made this a challenging start to 2022 for many Albertans,” the health chief told reporters.
There were 470 people who received care for COVID-19 in the hospital on Wednesday, up from 436 on Tuesday, with 72 of these people in the intensive care unit. There were 61 people in the intensive care unit on Tuesday.
A further 11 deaths have been reported within the last 24 hours.
“My thoughts and sympathies are with the family and friends left behind to pamper these people and anyone who has recently lost a loved one for some reason,” Hinshaw said.
Five of the reported deaths were in the Calgary zone: a woman in her 60s, a man and a woman in her 80s, and a woman in her 100s with pre-existing conditions and a man in his 70s with no pre-existing conditions.
Three of the deaths were in the Edmonton zone: a man in his 60s, a man in his 50s and a man in his 70s, all with pre-existing conditions.
Elsewhere in the province, a man in the 70s in the northern zone, a man in the 70s in the central zone and a man in the 80s in the southern zone died. All three men already had existing relationships.
There have now been 3,333 COVID-19 deaths in Alberta.
There were 37,196 confirmed active cases on Wednesday.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, there have been 384,126 confirmed cases in Alberta. To date, 343,597 of these people have recovered.
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