EDMONTON — Alberta has confirmed 239 new COVID-19 cases, attributing the largest daily increase yet to ramped up testing.

The province-wide totals are now 2,397 cases, 1,124 recoveries and 50 deaths.

There are 60 COVID-19 patients in hospital, including 13 in intensive care.

Alberta Health Services conducted 3,831 tests in the past 24 hours.

This is a breaking news update. More information to come as it becomes available. Original story:

Alberta surpassed 2,000 cases of COVID-19 and reached 50 deaths on Thursday, though the province is still waiting to announce probable cases since Tuesday’s data outage.

The province’s daily totals of confirmed cases have been in the hundreds all week except for Monday, after Alberta Health Services ramped up its testing when it expanded groups to anyone showing symptoms first in the Calgary Zone, and then all across Alberta.

Alberta currently sits at 2,158 cases of the novel coronavirus. However, the current COVID-19 data is “preliminary,” after a small electrical fire brought down the province’s data system.

Dr. Deena Hinshaw said she hopes to deliver those numbers, including recovered cases, zone breakdowns and hospitalizations, Friday at 3:30.

On Thursday, the chief medical officer of health said AHS referred approximately 6,000 people to get tested for COVID-19 after it expanded testing to the Calgary Zone.

As a result, infections in that area spiked this week, and on Tuesday, all but 10 of Alberta’s 138 cases came in the Calgary Zone.

AHS expanded testing to the rest of Alberta on Monday, potentially confirming an increase of cases in the remaining health zones as early as Friday.

This week, Hinshaw also explained hospitalizations are a better indicator of Alberta’s COVID-19 response as opposed to the number of confirmed cases, and said she hoped to reveal more hospital trends by the end of the week.

Premier Jason Kenney will join Hinshaw at Friday’s press conference. Watch live at CTVNewsEdmonton.ca.

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