Alberta reports 388 new COVID-19 cases, 4 more deaths Wednesday

Alberta public health officials reported 388 new COVID-19 cases and six new cases of the omicron variant.

According to provincial data, there are now 17 known cases of the omicron variant in Alberta.

Wednesday's COVID-19 case count marks a significant jump from Tuesday. There were 240 new cases reported Tuesday — a difference of 148 from Wednesday's count.

The higher case count comes after the number of COVID-19 tests conducted nearly doubled Tuesday from Monday.

Wednesday's 388 new cases were found through 10,700 tests. The test-positivity rate is 3.65 per cent.

The new cases reported Tuesday came from 5,478 COVID-19 tests.

There are now 4,140 known active cases in Alberta. Here's how they break down regionally:

• Calgary zone: 1,671
• Edmonton zone: 1,202
• North zone: 502
• Central zone: 497
• South zone: 263
• Unknown: 5

Four more Albertans have died from COVID-19 — each were men from the Calgary or central zones.

One man was in his 20s; the other three men were in their 50s, 60s and 80s, respectively.

The new deaths increase the number of Albertans who have died from COVID-19 to 3,272.

Meanwhile, there are 373 people being treated in hospital for COVID-19, including 68 patients in intensive care units. The number of hospitalizations remained the same from Tuesday's update, but the number ICU patients is down slightly.

As of end-of-day Tuesday, 71.9 per cent of Alberta's total population have either had two doses of an mRNA vaccine — such as Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna — or the one-shot Janssen vaccine.

Of the 21,752 vaccine doses administered Tuesday, 15,025 — or 69 per cent — were third doses.