Everything you need to know about COVID-19 in Alberta on Tuesday, Dec. 8

The latest:

• Albertais introducing sweeping newrestrictionsto slowthe spread of COVID-19that will begin on Sunday and remain in place for four weeks through Christmas and New Year's.
• Premier Jason Kenneyannounced that effective immediately,indoor and outdoor social gatherings are prohibited. People who live alone are limited toup to two close contacts for in-person visits.
• Masks are now mandatory across the province in all indoor workplace and facilities outside the home. Until now, Alberta had been the only province without a mask mandate.
• Starting Sunday, 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 as of Sunday.
• Places of worship are limited to 15 per cent of fire code occupancy.
• Starting Sunday, all employees are required to work from home unless their employer determines they need to be at work in person.
• A full list of the new restrictions is available on the province's website.
• Alberta reported 1,727 new cases on Tuesday, for a total of 20,388 active cases. The province has a nine per cent positivity rate. Nine more people have died, for a total of 640 deaths.
• There are654 people in hospital, 112 in ICUs.
• 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.

• Alberta will be receiving a shipment of 3,900 doses of Pfizer's COVID-19vaccine next week. The vaccine is under review but hasnot yet been approvedby Health Canada.
• The news comes afterPrime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Monday morning thatseveral hundred thousand doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine will be available in Canada before the end of the year shots primarily earmarkedfor long-term care home residents and the staffers working there.
• Military reservists are preparing for possible deployment in the Prairies as COVID-19 rates soar.
• As of Tuesday, Calgary had more than 7,500active cases and Edmonton had more than 9,300.
• Alberta Health Services haschanged itsclassroom isolation recommendations so that masked workers who were more than two metres from a person with COVID may not have to quarantine for 14 days like they currently do. But critics say it's unrealistic and some accuse the government of changing a best practise in order to keep schools open.

• The first president of Alberta Health Services, who wrote the report that's helped guide Australia to aim for zero COVID-19 cases, said that country's lockdown shows the economy and health don't need to be at odds.Stephen Duckettsays the proposal, which calledfor a strict lockdown "done once and done well" was one of the road maps for the Australian state of Victoria's response, and it's worked. The state, which includes the city of Melbourne and has a 6.4million population,hasn't seen a single new COVID casesince the end of October, after seeing daily cases in the 700s over the summer.
• "The evidence is that there's no conflict between what's right for the economy, what's right for people's health people in hospitaldon't spend money," Duckett says.
• An internal Alberta government document, obtained by CBC News, shows the province has been planning for more than a week to set up indoor field hospitals to treat 750 COVID-19 patients.

What you need to know today in Alberta

Alberta is announcing the strictest restrictions of the entire pandemic in an effortto slow the surging COVID-19 cases 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."

Effective immediately,indoor and outdoor social gatherings are prohibited. People who live alone are limited toup to two close contacts for in-person visits.Masks are now mandatory across the province in all indoor workplace and facilities outside the home. Until now, Alberta had been the only province without a mask mandate.

Other restrictions will beginSunday and remain in place 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.

Hinshaw said the target 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.

Kenney said it's with great reluctance Albertans are being asked to limit holiday gatheringsto the members of their household, or to two close contacts for people who live by themselves.

"We simply cannot let this Christmas turn into a tragedy for many families," he said.

Alberta reported 1,727 new cases on Tuesday, for a total of 20,388 active cases. The province has a nine per cent positivity rate. Nine more people have died, for a total of 640 deaths. There are654 people in hospital, 112 in ICUs.

The rising cases are already impacting health-care availability in Edmonton, 60 per cent of non-urgent surgeries that require a hospital stay are being postponed.

There were active alerts in 18 per cent of schools in the province, a total of 1,701 active cases.

Opposition Leader Rachel Notleysaid the premier should have acted a month ago when doctors had called for a lockdown, topreventunnecessary deaths and hospitalizations.

"The premier acted like he didn't have a choice. But let's be clear, he had many choices, many opportunities, to act decisively," she said.

"Now, all of us are staring down the barrel of the most restrictive Christmas we could have imagined instead of getting an appropriate public health response a month ago, what Albertans got was a premier who rejected public health advice, who delivered lectures on comorbidities who pandered to anti-maskers, jeopardized our health-care resources."

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.

Alberta will receivea shipment of 3,900 doses of Pfizer's COVID-19vaccine next week.

Two Alberta government officials told CBC News on Monday that federal officials have told their provincial counterparts to prepare for those initial doses in the coming days.

The news comes afterPrime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Monday morning thatseveral hundred thousand doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine would be available in Canada before the end of the year shots the provincial officials said will be earmarkedfor long-term care home residents and the staffers working there.

They added that the Alberta government's goal isto complete the first round ofimmunizations ona large swath of those high-risk groups by the end of the holidays.

The vaccine is under review but hasnot yet been approvedby Health Canada.

The Pfizer vaccine requires two rounds of immunizations, meaning Alberta's first shipment would vaccinate just under 2,000 people.

Hinshawsaid Monday afternoon thatone vaccine receiving site would be in Calgary and one in Edmonton. For now, eligible recipientswould have to come to the sites for to be vaccinated.

The Canadian military is preparing for possible deployment of troops in the Prairie provinces, potentially as early as Saturday in Alberta, to assist with their responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, CBC News has learned.

All of the army divisions and joint task forces across the country were asked earlier this fall to check how many part-time soldiers would be available for duty so as to have 300 reserve soldiers in each area, a senior defence source said.

Late last week, the military expanded the call in anticipation of troops helping out with vaccine distribution, although no numbers have yet been attached to the new round, the source said.

There has been a special focus on calling up reservists in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba in case there is a call for assistance from those provinces, which now have among the worst COVID-19 infection rates in Canada.

With 18 per cent of the province's schools on COVID alert or outbreak status, Alberta Health Services is changing its classroom isolation requirements so contact tracers will now assessschool staff exposures on a case-by-case basis.

Previously, contact tracers said anyone who had been in a classroom with an infectious person was considered a close contact and required to quarantine for 14 days.

Now, teachers or school employees who were within two metres of the infectious person for less than 15 minutes while wearing a mask, and practising good hand hygiene, may not be considered a close contact.

Any students who were in class with an infected person for more than 15 minutes total will still have to quarantine for 14 days.

Alberta Teachers' Association president Jason Schilling said the new distinctions may be impractical and impossible for teachers to make, given how much people move around inside schools and classrooms.

Furthermore, with the Alberta government'scontact tracers overwhelmed and unable to keep up with all school-related cases, Schilling wondershow they will assess staff members on a case-by-case basis.

"This [policy change]has the whiff of panic to me,"said Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Albertapresident Rory Gill. "Which is, we're not going to be able to keep these schools open if we abide by the best practise, so we're going to change that practise."

The first president of Alberta Health Servicessays Australia's strict lockdown shows it's possible to reach zero COVID-19 cases.

Stephen Duckett is health program director for the Australian Grattan Institute, a non-profit think tank, and one of the co-authors of the institute's Go For Zero report a policy proposal with the goal of driving Australia's active COVID-19 cases to zero.

The proposal, which calledfor a strict lockdown "done once and done well" was one of the road maps for the Australian state of Victoria's response, and it's worked. The state, which includes the city of Melbourne and has a 6.4million population,hasn't seen a single new COVID casesince the end of October, after seeing daily cases in the 700s over the summer.

Some small town Alberta entrepreneurs aregrateful for themore lenient COVID restrictions in their communities as they strive foreconomic recovery.

Theo Springer says one of the benefits of having his women's clothing store in a small town in rural Alberta is that not everyone has to wear amask when they walk in. Most of his customers do, but it's not mandatory.

Mask use in public places is voluntary in Didsbury, Alta., which is home to 5,300 people. That's due in part because the number of COVID-19 infections remains relatively low.

Mayor Rhonda Hunter says the issue of a mandatory mask mandate must be dealt with by the province, not the local town council. And she supportsthe province's stance that allows rural Albertans to decide the issue on their own.

When the oilpatch was sideswiped by the pandemic and an international oil price war, a warning went out that the industry had been pushed onto "life support" as crude prices and company share values both plummeted.

Ottawa rolled out a variety of funding programs economy wide and some specifically for the oilpatchin an attempt to get dollars flowing to the struggling sector and limit the damage.

Now, in the months since the programs have been introduced, there's a clearer picture of where and how the programs are working, with billions of dollars of support finding their way to the industry just as highercrude prices have also brought some stability.

The Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) has been particularly popular.

A snapshot of data analyzed by CBC Newsshows 23publicly traded companies identified in the oilfield services sector, as well as drillers, have received more than$140million, pre-tax, in CEWS funding, between them, including more than $23 million to ClearStream Energy Services and $16 million to Precision Drilling.

A pair of southern Alberta churches and three individuals have launched a court challenge, arguing that the province's COVID-19 restrictions are an infringement of their constitutional rights.

The application was filed in the Court of Queen's Bench in Calgary on Friday, the same day that Alberta recorded 15 additional deaths, and a record high test positivity rate of 10.5 per cent.

"The vast majority of all the restrictions in the public health orders do violate one or more constitutional rights. So, yes, our clients want to see them all removed," said James Kitchen with the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, one of the lawyers representing the applicants.

His clients are seeking to have a court declare that the various public health orders can't be enforced. He said there needs to be a strong reason for limiting people's liberties, and contends that there isn't one in this case.

One of the largest operators of Canadian seniors' residences and long-term care homes is calling for provinces to adopt widespread surveillance testing as part of an internal review set to be released on Monday.

Thereview for Reverawas chaired by Dr. Bob Bell, former deputy health minister in Ontario and a former hospital CEO.Bell said Ontario has adopted surveillance testing and has since been able to protect long-term care residents more effectively.

It has yet to be adopted elsewhere in Canada, where thousands of COVID-19 deaths have been reported at care homes.

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:

Here isthe regional breakdown of active cases reported on Tuesday.

• Calgary zone: 7,529, up from 7,472.
• Edmonton zone: 9,383, up from 9,190.
• North zone: 1,212, up from 1,147.
• South zone: 646, down from 654.
• Central zone: 1,526, up from 1,473.
• Unknown: 236, up from 131.

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 8 a.m. ET on Tuesday,Canada's COVID-19 case count stood at 423,057, with 71,539of those cases considered active.A CBC News tally of deaths based on provincial reports, regional health information and CBC's reporting stood at 12,777.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Monday that several hundred thousand doses of the PfizerCOVID-19 vaccine will be available in Canada before the end of the year shots that are primarily destined for long-term care home residents and the staff that work there.

Trudeau said up to 249,000 doses of the two-dose vaccine will be on hand by years' end, the start of a mass inoculation campaign that is expected to take many months to complete.

The announcement comes a day after Pfizer and its German partner,BioNTech, confirmed toCBCNews that the drug companies are prepared to ship vaccine doses to Canada within 24 hours of regulatory approval.

Ontarioon Tuesday reported 1,676 new cases of COVID-19 and 10 additional deaths, bringing the provincial death toll to 3,808.

As of Tuesday, the province reported having 794 COVID-19 patients in hospital, with 219 in intensive care units.

The update from Health Minister Christine Elliott comes a day after the provincereported1,925 new cases of COVID-19 anew daily record.

Quebecon Tuesday reported1,564 new cases of COVID-19and 36 additional deaths, bringing the provincial death toll to7,313.

As Quebec deals with rising COVID-19 cases and increased pressure on its health-care system, Premier Franois Legault said Tuesday his government isn't ruling out implementing further restrictions.

Hospitalizations increased to 835, with 114 people in intensive care units, according toprovincial data.

As Quebec deals with rising COVID-19 cases and increased pressure on its health-care system, Premier Franois Legault said Tuesday his government isn't ruling out implementing further restrictions.

In Atlantic Canada,Prince Edward Islandreportedno new cases of COVID-19on Tuesday, leaving the number of cases in the province at 84.P.E.I. Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Heather Morrison announced four additional cases on Monday, all individualsin their 20s and 30s.

Morrison said at a briefing Tuesday that enforcement of new temporary rules will focus on gatherings, and warnings will be followed by fines.

Newfoundland and Labradorreported one new case on Tuesday. Premier Andrew Furey said on Monday the province wouldnot be rejoining the so-called Atlantic bubble forat least the next month. That meansall visitors to the province will be required to self-isolate for 14 days whether they're from Atlantic Canada or not.

Nova Scotiareportedeight new casesof COVID-19 andNew Brunswickreportedtwo new caseson Monday.

Across the North,Yukonreported one new case of COVID-19 on Tuesday, bringing the total number of cases in the province to 58 with 10 of those considered active.

Nunavuthealth officials had not yet updated their figures on Tuesday, but on Monday the territoryreportedthree new cases of COVID-19, all in the community of Arviat.

Holiday gatherings will be outlawed in Manitoba this year as sweeping COVID-19 restrictions will be extended into the new year, though officials have added a number of exemptions to the provincial health order.

The restrictions will continue into January, Chief Provincial Public Health Officer Dr. Brent Roussin and Premier Brian Pallister announced Tuesday.

He made the comments as Manitoba announced 13 more deaths, 245 new cases and a provincial test positivity rate of 13.3 per cent.

Saskatchewanhealth officials reported274 new cases of COVID-19and one additional death on Monday, bringing the provincial death toll to 60.

InBritish Columbia, COVID-19 restrictions wereextended to Jan. 8as the transmission and community spread of the illness remain high.

Canadian alcohol distillers who pivoted early to produce hand sanitizer to keep Canadians safe from COVID-19are crying foul as their hopes of solving longer-term supply chain issues appear to have evaporated.

When the prime minister called on Canadian industry to retool to produce protective equipment in theearly panic of the pandemic, dozens ofdistillers switched from making spirits to handsanitizer.

So dozens of Canada's distillers scrambled toproducetens of thousands of litres for free. At the height of the shortage, about a dozen distilleries in B.C.alone were supplying hospitals, government offices and emergency workers all over the province.

As the months wore on, some distilleries began to chargeto cover the cost of making the sanitizer, but many continued to donate thousands of litres to people and organizations in need, being careful not to profiteer in a time of crisis.

CBCNews has learned that, during that time period, thefederal government spent hundreds of millions of tax dollars procuring sanitizer from outside Canada.

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.