Premier Jason Kenney and health officials will release “extensive” modelling data on Wednesday projecting the potential health impacts of COVID-19 in Alberta.
Kenney will be joined at a news conference by Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta’s chief medical officer of health, and Dr. Verna Yiu, CEO of Alberta Health Services, the government said in a media advisory.
You can watch the news conference here, starting at 3:30 p.m. MT.
In an address to Albertans on Tuesday evening, Kenney outlined two possible scenarios for the pandemic in Alberta.
Under the “probable” scenario, Alberta would hit the peak of infections in mid-May. From the beginning of the outbreak to the end of summer the province could see up to 800,000 total infections, and between 400 and 3,100 deaths.
Under a more serious but less likely “elevated” scenario, infections in Alberta would peak at the beginning of May, with as many as one million total infections and between 500 and 6,600 deaths.
In his widely watched Tuesday address, Kenney said public health orders designed to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus may have to stay in place until the end of May.
“As hard as this will be, it is the only ethical choice when thousands of lives are still at stake,” Kenney said.
“To be honest, I hope the models are wrong.”
As of Tuesday, Alberta had 1,373 cases of COVID-19, including 26 deaths and 42 patients in hospital.