In the biggest one-day increase in cases, Alberta is reporting 117 new confirmed cases of COVID-19.

That brings the total to 871. Of those, 142 have recovered. However, the death toll in Alberta is now 11 as two more deaths have been reported.

Dr. Deena Hinshaw says they were both men in their 80's, one in the North zone and the other in the Calgary zone.

"I wish to convey my heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of these individuals," Hinshaw says. "Every loss of life is a tragedy, whether due to COVID-19 or some other reason. It is also a call to action to do everything we can to stop the spread and limit transmission."

As for the increase in cases, Hindshaw says it was due to a backlog in testing.

"I know this large jump in cases might seem alarming," says Hinshaw. "It is the result of our provincial labs completing a backlog of tests now that they are back to working at full capacity. We have conducted more than 4,500 tests in the last 24 hours. Of these, around 98 per cent came back negative, an indicator in line with previous days."

Premier Jason Kenney says the backlog developed due to a temporary shortage of reagents, an essential element in the testing, which has since been stocked back up.

The record number of tests conducted in the past day helped Alberta reach a significant milestone, with more than 50,000 tests completed to date.

Dr. Hinshaw says the rising number of cases is concerning and that she is hoping to get a better sense of what the provincial data means by the end of this week.

"We're only able to report what's been tested but that's not a reflection of the number of people who get ill every day, so what we're seeing is numbers that have been compressed," Hinshaw says. "We did see a couple of days earlier this week where we had quite low numbers. Today obviously is a very high number, but the overall percentage of the tests that we're getting, that are testing positive, is relatively constant."

Kenney says the more testing that is done in Alberta, the more information the province will have to trace, control, and contain positive cases. He says the hard truth is that things will get worse before they get better.

"That said, Alberta's pandemic response is strong. We continue to lead all provinces in per capita testing and indeed we continue to lead most of the world," Kenney says.

The Premier says he's confident that the province has the health care personnel and equipment needed to cope with anticipated hospitalizations. Kenney says later this week he will present AHS' modelling for the weeks to come.