Premier Jason Kenney appeared with Dr. Deena Hinshaw today (May 27) to keep encouraging Albertans to get vaccinated in order that Alberta's Open For Summer Plan can stay on track.  

Even though the plan that Kenney laid out yesterday relies heavily on the number of Albertans who receive their first vaccination, Kenney tried to allay some people's fear that the province was trying to coerce them into a vaccination.

Kenney says vaccination remains an individual choice for Albertans and, to prove his point, says the legislature is about to vote to pass an amendment to the Public Health Act.

"To remove the mandatory power of government to coerce people to take the vaccine.  That's been a power founded in Alberta law, we believe, since 1910.  Just to underscore that this is a free choice, we are repealing it because we have no intention to use it, nor do we have any intention of using vaccine passports."

Kenney says none of that changes the fundamental fact that the most powerful way and the most powerful thing you can do to protect the broader society and accelerate the province's return to normal is to get vaccinated.

Kenney says 556,000 bookings are in place for over the next four weeks, 433,000 of which are in the next two weeks.  If those 433,000 people all show up for their vaccine, that will put us over the 70 percent threshold of first doses needed to remove all health restrictions in the province.

Dr. Hinshaw then reported 513 new cases of the virus with active cases now sitting at 10,013, a drop of 940 since yesterday.  9,017 tests done in the province make for a positivity rate of 6.1 percent.

Hospital patients in Alberta dropped by 10 more to 538 and the number in ICU is down by seven to 150.  One more death from COVID-19 occurred in Alberta.

More than 37,000 vaccine doses were administered bringing the total doses to 2,615,747.  50.4 percent of people have now received at least one dose with 8.1 percent fully vaccinated.  

Active cases in the City of Airdrie fell by over 10 percent today from 296 to 263.   32,663 Airdronians, or 43 percent of those eligible, have now been vaccinated.

In Rocky View County active cases have fallen to 120, a drop of seven from yesterday. 

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