The Pulse: Dec. 15, 2020

Effective Dec. 13, indoor dining is prohibited in all restaurants, pubs, bars, lounges and cafes across Alberta at least until Jan. 12, 2021. Businesses will be forced to rely on take-out and delivery for a period that, pre-COVID, would have been their busiest time of the year. Patrick Saurette of The Marc expects to lay off 95% of his staff due to the changes.

Some establishments, such as Pho Tau Bay, have elected to cease operations until they are permitted to offer dine-in services again. Others have pivoted back to offering meal kits, like DOSC and RGE RD.

Platform Calgary will take over the operation of Startup Calgary, currently run by Calgary Economic Development (CED), in 2021.

Betakit reported that "the deal did not include the sale or transfer of intellectual property or branding rights." Startup Calgary will continue to receive government funding to support it. 

Startup TNT founder Zack Storms said the announcement is great news for the Alberta ecosystem. 

The number of active cases of COVID-19 in Edmonton surpassed 10,000 on Dec. 13, a terrible milestone reached on the same day that the most recent public health restrictions — namely the closure of some businesses and reduced capacity in others — were put into place.

This chart generated from Edmonton's open data catalogue shows how quickly things have escalated in the second wave. On Nov. 15, Edmonton had 4,134 active cases, with 153 in hospital and 36 in intensive care; a month later, the number had risen to 10,194 active cases, with 403 in hospital and 87 in intensive care.

Of the 733 deaths from COVID-19 recorded in Alberta since the pandemic began, 359 have been in Edmonton.

Amid this grim news, there was a ray of hope on Dec. 14 as Alberta announced the arrival of enough vaccine to immunize 29,000 health-care workers before the end of the year.

Edmonton's open data catalogue is a portal for information gathered by or about the City of Edmonton and made available to the public for analysis. The source of the information in this chart is the Alberta government's COVID-19 statistics.

• Alberta plans to vaccinate 29,000 health-care workers by the end of December, Health Minister Tyler Shandro said on Dec. 14.
• Edmonton home prices are expected to remain stable in 2021, according to Royal LePage.
• Employees in Edmonton’s food and entertainment industries are bracing for layoffs as new COVID-19 restrictions came into effect on Dec. 13.
• According to CTV, "athletes and coaches from across Europe are on their way to Edmonton for the world junior hockey championships." The World Juniors teams will "bubble" similarly to the NHL playoffs earlier this year.