Alberta Premier Jason Kenney says he is set to make a final decision whether or not the province will lift all remaining restrictions on March 1.
Kenney says that this will be a “prudent decision” and the move to proceed to phase two will be made on Feb. 26 based on the latest data.
COVID-19 case numbers provided by the province show 1,491 people are in hospital, and 116 are in ICU, as of Feb. 17.
Those numbers have been holding steady in recent weeks, but is still nearly double the number of ICU cases the province had at the end of 2021, and before the surge of the Omicron variant.
On Saturday, February 26 the government will announce a final decision about proceeding to Phase Two of our plan to lift almost all restrictions on March 1.
We will make a prudent decision based on the latest data.
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— Jason Kenney ???????????????????????? (@jkenney) February 22, 2022
The next phase of reopening includes removing mask mandates, indoor and outdoor gathering limits, capacity limits on all large venues and removing any restrictions for K-12 schools.
However, there has been controversy and ongoing debate on whether the removal of restrictions is a rash decision for residents in Alberta given that the province is only now emerging out of the fifth wave of the Omicron variant.
For example, the recent student protests in Alberta call for more transparency for government restrictions.
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Despite the backlash from some residents in Calgary, the city council has also voted in favour to move forward with removing certain restrictions such as the mandatory use of masks.
The province’s vaccine passport requirement ended earlier this month.
