811 new cases, positivity rate stands at 6.4 per cent

A total of 96,052 cases have recovered.

"Alberta's capacity to give people the jab will soon outstrip available vaccine supplies and we are doing everything humanly possible to roll out these life-saving vaccines as quickly as they arrive", Kenney said. That record was set on Saturday.

By the end of January, Kenney said the province will be able to administer 50,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine per week through partnerships with community pharmacies.

Earlier on, the province said it would reserve half of the vaccine doses to make sure the first group inoculated got the booster in a timely fashion. Vaccine manufacturers have recommended having the second dose administered between 21 to 28 days for full protection.

"We know that in those studies there was a range of intervals between the first and second dose that did go up to 42 days", Hinshaw said.

But she doesn't want people to become complacent.

Hinshaw said the best way to be able to open up businesses again is "for all of us to work together to bring our numbers down".

The ability to offer the vaccine to more people had to be weighed against the need to provide second doses, she said.

One dose of the vaccine is about 90 per cent effective, but it's not clear how long that protection will last without a second dose.

"None of these are easy decisions, but it's really important that as we're considering all of these options, we make sure that we're thinking about the benefits and risks at individual levels as well as the population level".

So far, the province has distributed 46,791 doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines to staff and residents in long-term care and supportive living senior homes, home care workers, respiratory therapists, and health workers in ICUs, emergency departments and COVID-19 units.

Alberta reported 652 new cases of the illness on Tuesday.

Meantime, another case of the COVID-19 variant from the United Kingdom has been identified in Alberta, for a total of five cases.

But hospitalization numbers are higher now than they were a month ago.

Red Deer County has 49 active cases of COVID-19 as of Tuesday, down two, while Sylvan Lake has 31, a decrease of six. That day, 716 people were being treated in hospitals for the illness, including 136 in ICU beds.

"In this province, we have avoided that acceleration that other provinces have seen", she said at a news conference Tuesday.

30-39 years, seven deaths.