Alberta Premier Jason Kenney said the province is ready to move on to the next phase of its reopening plan on March 1, as the numbers of COVID-19 transmissions and hospitalizations “continue to decline rapidly.” “With these promising trends, we are in a position to safely move to Step 2 of our path back to normal and remove the vast majority of remaining public health measures in Alberta,” Kenney announced during the opening ceremony of the Grande Prairie Regional Hospital in northwestern Alberta on Feb. 26. “All signs here and across the world suggests that the worst of COVID-19 is behind us. The pressure on our health-care system is easing as hospitalizations due to COVID-19 are declining,” he noted. Starting on March 1, the province will end all mandatory public masking requirements except in high-risk settings, which include public transit, Alberta Health Services-operated and -contracted facilities like hospitals, and continuing care settings. The province will also lift …