It's definitely not the news many were hoping to hear.

Alberta's Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw says Alberta's COVID numbers continue to drop but not enough to ease restrictions currently in place.

She says there were 678 new cases to report Thursday with a positivity rate of 4.8 per cent.

There are 726 people in hospital with 119 in Intensive Care Units and 16 more Albertans have lost their lives to the virus..

"In a year that has already been extremely difficult I am proud of the sacrifices and community spirit that Albertans have shown to produce these encouraging numbers," she says. "At the same time we are not in the clear just yet."

Dr. Hinshaw says we still have the second-highest active case rate per capita in Canada.

There's no word on how much longer the restrictions will remain in place.

"Ultimately what is most important is that we make sure that our acute care system is able to respond to all of our health needs and to do that we need to give it a bit more time and the exact amount of time again, it will really all depend on how we all collectively work together to keep those numbers down," Dr. Hinshaw says.

She says there's a lot of travel between communities and that's why restrictions weren't eased regionally.

Locally there are eight active cases in High River, 37 in Okotoks and 21 in Foothills County.

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