Northern Lights Regional Health Centre no longer on COVID-19 watch list

The Emergency Room entrance at the Northern Lights Regional Health Centre. Photographed August 16, 2015. Sarah Anderson REPORTER.

The government of Alberta removed the Northern Lights Regional Health Centre from its COVID-19 watch.

The hospital first confirmed an outbreak of the illness at their medicine unit on Aug. 21, 2020.

RELATED: Northern Lights Regional Health Centre confirms COVID-19 outbreak at medicine unit

The province said previously it publicly reports cases at acute care and continuing care facilities when there are two or more cases of COVID-19.

“Outbreaks are declared over when four weeks have passed with no new cases, so not all outbreaks listed have current transmission happening.”

Alberta reported three new cases and three recoveries of COVID-19 in the RMWB in the last 24 hours.

In Fort McMurray, there are 48 active cases, one death, and 196 resolved cases of the illness.

Outside the urban service area, there are four active cases and 62 recoveries of COVID-19.

RELATED: PM Justin Trudeau said second wave of COVID-19 already in Canada

Across Alberta, there are 153 new cases and no deaths of COVID-19 reported in the last 24 hours.

56 Albertans are in hospital with 14 in intensive care.

There are 1497 active cases, 261 deaths, and 15,585 recoveries of COVID-19 in the province.

Just over one per cent of the 14,211 tests completed in the last 24 hours in Alberta were positive.

To date, health officials completed 1,269,261 tests.

Foothills Hospital update

A COVID-19 outbreak at Foothills Hospital continues to grow with 35 people now infected.

There were five new cases identified in staff and one additional case found in a patient.

There are now 17 more staff forced into isolation with a total of 136 isolating right now.

RELATED: Third patient dies in Foothills Hospital outbreaks, 114 staff members isolated

There have been no further deaths attributed to the outbreak, and three patients have died overall so far.

The outbreak has not spread beyond the cardiac and general units of the hospital.

RELATED: ‘They’re only human’: Nurses dealing with burnout, fear at Foothills hospital

As officials continue to try and determine where it originated in the hospital, enhanced cleaning measures take place as well as more screenings of staff and patients.

More than 3,000 staff have been tested since the outbreak began.

This article includes excerpts from 660 News.