Here's what the COVID-19 numbers are telling us 18 days after Alberta lifted restrictions

With mandatory masks, vaccine passports and venue capacity limits firmly in the rearview mirror for most Albertans, COVID-19 numbers are showing a mixed picture.

Far from gone, the virus remains persistent in many parts of the province.

Wastewater data — the detection method able to give the most advanced picture of where SARS-CoV-2 is going — shows virus counts are levelling off after a steep climb and descent in the Omicron wave.

The latest readings on the COVID-19 wastewater dashboard are higher than some of the earlier peaks in Alberta's two largest urban centres as well as in a few small communities.

"It really just does seem to be, you know, hanging around, not taking off. Hopefully, it stays that way," said Casey Hubert, a geomicrobiology professor at the University of Calgary who works with the group collecting wastewater samples in Calgary.

While numbers have jumped in recent days in Calgary, Banff, Lethbridge and Medicine Hat, Hubert says there hasn't yet been three consecutive days of increases to be sure there is a trend in Alberta.

Edmonton, conversely, has not seen any change up or down.

Jason Kindrachuk, an assistant professor of microbiology at the University of Manitoba, says with restrictions gone for almost three weeks, increasing numbers aren't unexpected, even if it is too early to tell whether the numbers are just noise.

"Looking at Europe right now, we're seeing increases in cases," he said. "And that also ties back to the loosening of restrictions and, of course, concerns about vulnerable populations with immune waning and all these different factors coming in together."

Daily new infection, hospitalization, ICU and daily death numbers in Alberta all continue to decline.

However, the positivity rate is still hovering around 20 per cent, and the number of official active cases remains higher than at earlier lows in the pandemic.

Both these numbers are influenced by province limiting of tests to those in high-risk settings such as long-term care facilities. The number of active cases could be higher than the official number as those who have contracted COVID-19 are not getting a PCR test administered by the province and therefore don't show up in official figures.

The numbers in Europe have been influenced by the new subvariant of Omicron known as BA.2, which is said to be even more transmissible than the original strain of Omicron, or BA.1.

It is unclear whether the emergence of BA.2, which recently accounted for a quarter of new cases in Alberta, is the reason why overall COVID-19 levels haven't dropped further, says Hubert.