Everything you need to know about COVID-19 in Alberta on Monday, Dec. 14

The latest:

• Alberta reported1,887 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday a new record high and another 15 deaths.
• Across the province, 716 people are being treated in hospitals for the illness, including 136 in ICU beds.
• TheR-value, or reproduction number, over the past seven days averaged0.98. An R-value of 1 means an infected person has infected, on average, one other person.If the value is above 1, the spread will continue to grow.
• Alberta plans to administer first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to 29,000 health-care workers by the end of December, the province's health minister says.
• Starting thisweek, 3,900 doses of thePfizer-BioNTech vaccinewill go toICU doctors and nurses, respiratory therapists and long-term care workers in a bid to keep both the workers and those under their care safe.
• Details on the vaccine and Alberta's plans to date can be found here.

• Sweeping newrestrictionsaimed atslowingthe spread of COVID-19 came into effect in Alberta onSunday at 12 a.m., and are expected to be in place for at leastfour weeks:
  • Retail services and malls must now reduce customer capacity to 15 per cent of fire code occupancy.
  • Restaurants, pubs and bars will beclosedto in-person service. Takeout, delivery and curbside pickup are still allowed.
  • Hair salons, nail salons, casinos, bowling alleys, gyms, movie theatres, libraries and museums will be closed starting on Sunday.
  • Places of worship are limited to 15 per cent of fire code occupancy.
  • All employees are now required to work from home unless their employer determines they need to be at work in person.
  • Indoor and outdoor social gatherings remain prohibited. People who live alone are limited toup to two close contacts for in-person visits.
  • Masks are mandatory across the province in all indoor workplacesand facilities outside the home, exceptwhen working alone in an office or a safely distanced cubicle or a barrier is in place, when inrental accommodations used solely asa private residence or infarm operations.Alberta had been the only province without a mask mandate until late November.
• A full list of the new restrictions is available on the province's website.
• Alberta will triple its small and medium enterprise grants to $20,000, while lowering the eligibility criteria to 30 per cent of revenues lost retroactive to March.

• At least a dozen new employee-related caseshave been reportedby three companies that run grocery store and pharmacy chains in AlbertaLoblaw Companies Ltd., Sobeys Inc. and Co-op since Dec. 9.The stores are reporting cases on their websites.
• An Alberta pilot project that tested international travellers found a low COVID-19 infection rateof 1.4 per cent.
• As rising COVID-19 cases put pressure on Alberta's health-care system, up to 60 per cent of Edmonton-area surgeries will bedelayed and diagnostic imaging and other clinical support services willbe reduced by as much as 40 per cent.
• As of Saturday, Calgary had more than 7,200active cases and Edmonton had more than 9,700.

What you need to know today in Alberta

Alberta plans to administer first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to 29,000 health-care workers by the end of December, the province's health minister says.

The province has already received3,900 doses of Pfizer-BioNTech'svaccine and expects to get another 25,350 doses next week,Health Minister Tyler Shandro said Monday at a news conference.

"I said last week that there was a first glimmer of good news with the expected arrival of the first small shipment of vaccines this week," Shandro said. "Today, I am hereto confirm that the news is a lot bigger and it's a lot better."

The province will begin immunizing ICU doctors and nurses, respiratory therapists and eligible continuing-care staff in Edmonton and in Calgary on Wednesday, he said.

Alberta reported1,887 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday and another 15 deaths. Across the province, 716 people are being treated in hospitals for the illness, including 136 in ICU beds.

TheR-value, or reproduction number, over the past seven days averaged0.98.

Sweeping new restrictions intended to curb the surge of COVID-19 in the province took affect at12 a.m. on Sunday. They will remainin place at least for four weeks through Christmas and New Year's:

• Retail services and malls must reduce customer capacity to 15 per cent of fire code occupancy.
• Restaurants, pubs and bars are closed to in-person service. Takeout, delivery and curbside pickup are allowed.
• Hair salons, nail salons, casinos, bowling alleys, gyms, movie theatres, libraries and museums will be closed.
• Places of worship are limited to 15 per cent of fire code occupancy.
• All employees are required to work from home unless their employer determines they need to be at work in person.
• A full list of new measures is available on the province's website.

On Dec. 8, Alberta announcedthe new restrictions thestrictestof the entire pandemic in an effortto slow the surging COVID-19cases and hospitalizations in the province.

"If you gathered everyone who has been diagnosed with COVID-19 together, it would be the fifth largest city in Alberta," said Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta's chief medical officer of health.

"Every case is a person.We are all at risk of COVID-19, we are all impacted by the toll it is taking on our health system."

Hinshaw said on Dec. 9 that it's important to follow the spirit of the restrictions if a situation is unclear, rather than working to find loopholes.

"If you are unsure about what to do, please err on the side of caution and make the safest choice," she said.

In addition to the restrictions that came into affect on Sunday,indoor and outdoor social gatherings are also prohibited. People who live alone are limited toup to two close contacts for in-person visits.Masks aremandatory across the province in all indoor workplacesand facilities outside the home. UntilNovember, Alberta had been the only province without a mask mandate.

Hinshaw said the target of the new restrictions is not to reach zero COVID-19 cases, something other jurisdictions have aimed for, but to no longer have the health-care system be at risk.

"These are decisions that we have arrived at not as a first resort but as a last resort, to protect lives and to preserve our health-care system," Premier Jason Kenney said.

Calgary's mandatory mask bylaw willremain in forceuntilDecember2021,unless it's repealed sooner. The bylaw was first introduced in July.

Calgary City Council voted to extend the possible deadline for the temporarybylaw at the same time as approving an increase in fines from $50 for a first offence to $100. A second offence would cost $200 and third and subsequent violations would result intickets of $300.

Click on the map below to zoom in or out on specific local geographic areas in Alberta and find out more about COVID-19 there:

Alberta released a new ad campaign on Friday featuring a man intended to represent the COVID-19 virus at a party and at a holiday gathering.

Hinshaw said the ads were intended to urge Albertans to not socially gather over the holidays.

"Our goal is to get people's attention, to help them see common situations from a different perspective, and as a result to influence their behaviour," Hinshaw said at a news conference.

"The campaign uses humour because the situation is serious and we need to use every tool at our disposal to reach all Albertans."

The number of positive COVID-19 tests in a pilot project for international travellers at the Calgary airport and a United States border crossing in southern Alberta has been reasonably low after its first six weeks.

The program offers Canadians the option of getting a test when they arrive. They must then self-isolate for 24 to 48 hours while they wait for the results.

If the results are negative, they can leave quarantine, but must monitor for symptoms daily and get a second swab within six to seven days of their arrival date.

As of Thursday, the province said 14,382 travellers had taken tests. About 1.4 per cent were positive with the initial swab. After the second test, the infection rate was 0.7 per cent.

The project is scheduled to last six months, or until 52,000 passengers have gone through the process. There are also plans to expand it next year.

After losing a significant amount of inventory to COVID-19 restrictions, a Calgary restaurant found a way to circumvent food waste this time around.

The staff at Eggs Oasis spent their Sunday giving away 500 free pick-up breakfasts that were prepared with the excess inventory they would have lost when dine-in service came to a halt on Sunday.

And according to owner Noor Sadid, it was a means of preventing history from repeating itself for a third time.

"The first time this COVID thing happened, it was very sad. We lost quite a significant amount of inventory," Noor said.

"In June, when they wanted us to reopen in the evening of that day that we bought our inventory, they announced again that they pushed our reopening. So we lost our inventory there, as well."

This time around, Noorhad an idea.

"I said, 'No way are we going to lose our inventory. We're going to give back to our community who supported us for all these years.'"

Business owners and employees across Calgary are digesting the impacts of Alberta's widespreadnew restrictions. Ernie Tsu, a board member with the Alberta Hospitality Association and owner of Trolley 5 pub, saidthe measures area hard hit to restaurants and bars right before the holidays.

• Alberta imposes tough new restrictions in bid to curb soaring COVID-19 infections

"It's going to be very tough for us to have to look at our staff, as we have to lay off coming around the corner here. Christmas is usually the best season for every restaurant and local pub," Tsu said.

Solo Diallo, co-owner of Mumbai Dakar in Edmonton, said he worries whether his restaurant will survive, but still supports the new measures.

"We'll just try to outlast and then we'll see how far we can go," he told CBC's Edmonton AM on Wednesday.

Alberta is expanding its small and medium business relaunch grant, to make up to 15,000 more businesses eligible for funding. Businesses can now receive 15 per cent of pre-pandemic monthly revenues up to a maximum of $15,000.

The program is also lowering its threshold from businesses who experienced 40 per cent revenue loss to 30 per cent revenue loss, retroactive to March.

Additional business supports are available through the federal government.

Here isthe regional breakdown of active cases reported on Sunday:

• Calgary zone: 7,268, up from 7,127 reported on Saturday(24,042 recovered).
• Edmonton zone: 9,778, up from 9,548(23,884recovered).
• North zone: 1,289, up from 1,236(3,968 recovered).
• South zone: 572, down from 589(3,889 recovered).
• Central zone: 1,589, up from 1,522(2,903 recovered).
• Unknown: 66, up from 50(132recovered).

Find out which neighbourhoods or communities have the most cases, how hard people of different ages have been hit, the ages of people in hospital, how Alberta compares to other provinces and more in: Here are the latest COVID-19 statistics for Alberta and what they mean

What you need to know today in Canada:

As of 7:45 a.m.ETon Monday, Canada's COVID-19 case count stood at460,744, with 74,060 of those cases considered active.A CBC News tally of deaths based on provincial reports, regional health information and CBC's reporting stood a 13,431.

Canada's COVID-19 vaccination campaign kicked off in Ontario on Monday with the vaccination of a personal support worker in Toronto, which is still under lockdown as Ontario tries to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus that has infected more than 464,000 Canadians.

Quebec, the hardest-hit province in the country, is expected to launch its own vaccination efforts later Monday after the first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine arrived in Canada Sunday.

Retired general Rick Hillier, who is leading Ontario's vaccine task force, said the number of vaccinations that will take place in the province Monday is "probably pretty small," but he said it's still significant especially for health-care workers and others who have been at the front line of the pandemic for months.

"This is V-Day," he told CBC News Network early Monday, before the first dose was given.

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Canada received its first batches of the Pfizer-BioBTech COVID-19 vaccine ahead of the planned first stage of immunizations this week. But with so few doses on hand at this stage, the initial delivery is more of a morale boost than a medical victory.

InSaskatchewan, health officials reported three additional deaths and222 new cases of COVID-19on Sunday. There were 117 people with COVID-19 in hospital, including 23 in intensive care units.

Manitobareported seven additional deaths and273 new cases of COVID-19on Sunday. Health officials in the province reported304 people in hospital,with 43 people in intensive care.

Ontarioreported 1,940 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday, with 544 new cases in Toronto and 390 in Peel Region. Health Minister Christine Elliott said the province completednearly 57,100 tests.

The province alsoreported 23 additional deaths, bringing the death toll to 3,972.

COVID-19 hospitalizations in Ontario increased to857, with 244 people in intensive care units, according to aprovincial dashboard.

Quebecreported 1,620 new cases of COVID-19 on Monday and 25 additional deaths.Hospitalizations rose to 890,with 122 COVID-19 patients in intensive care units.

In Atlantic Canada,Newfoundland and Labradorreportedone new case of COVID-19on Monday.

Nova Scotiareportedsix new cases of COVID-19on Sunday, whileNew Brunswickreportedtwo new cases. There were no new cases reported inPrince Edward Island.

Across the North,Nunavutreportednine new cases of COVID-19on Monday, all of them in Arviat.

There were no new cases reported inYukon, or theNorthwest Territorieson Sunday.

British Columbiadidn't provide updated COVID-19 data to the public over the weekend.Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry and Health Minister Adrian Dix are expected to provide more details Monday about the limited availability of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

Self-assessment and supports:

With winter cold and influenza season approaching, Alberta Health Services will prioritize Albertans for testing who have symptoms, and those groups which are at higher risk of getting or spreading the virus.

General asymptomatictesting is currently unavailable for people with no known exposure to COVID-19.

Those who test positive will be asked to use the online COVID-19 contact tracing tool, so that their close contacts can be notified by text message.

The province says Albertans who have returned to Canada from other countries must self-isolate. Unless your situation is critical and requires a call to 911, Albertans are advised to call Health Link at 811 before visiting a physician, hospital or other health-care facility.

If you have symptoms, even mild, you are to self-isolate for at least 10 days from the onset of symptoms, until the symptoms have disappeared.

You can find Alberta Health Services' latest coronavirus updates here.

The province also operates a confidential mental health support line at 1-877-303-2642 and addiction help line at 1-866-332-2322, both available 24 hours a day.

Online resources are available for advice on handling stressful situations and ways to talk with children.

There is a 24-hour family violence information line at 310-1818 to get anonymous help in more than 170 languages, and Alberta's One Line for Sexual Violence is available at 1-866-403-8000, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.