By Rob Vogt, Local Press

There has been a confirmed case of COVID-19 in the Claresholm area, but anyone considered exposed will be contacted by Alberta Health Services and asked to self-isolate and be tested for COVID-19.

On March 24, the Government of Alberta updated its geographic information of confirmed cases of COVID-19 on its website and there was one case on the map from the Claresholm area.

Alberta Health Services was contacted by the Claresholm Local Press for further information.

“As per standard practice for all cases of COVID-19, AHS (Alberta Health Services) directly contacts any individual considered exposed to confirmed cases, and these people are asked to self-isolate and are tested for COVID-19,” said Sabrina Atwal, issues management and media relations for Alberta Health Services, in an e-mail response the morning of March 25.

“This is called contact tracing, and is done in response to each case of COVID-19 we confirm by lab testing,” she explained.

“Again, all individuals exposed to a case are contacted directly by AHS,” she said. “Only those individuals contacted directly by AHS, are considered exposed to any case.

“If you are not contacted directly by AHS, you are not considered exposed.”

She added that, in order to protect patient privacy, no further patient details will be provided.

The Government of Alberta continues to update information on cases of COVID-19 at https://covid19stats.alberta.ca/ 

Claresholm is part of the Calgary Zone, and this case is included in the Calgary Zone stats.