series of tweets sent Friday afternoon, Dr. Deena Hinshaw is looking to reassure Albertans the province is prepared to detect mutations of the COVID-19 virus after the World Health Organization identified another variant of the virus dubbed Omicron.“At this time, there have been no cases of this variant detected in Canada,” Alberta’s chief medical officer of health tweeted. “I want to reassure Albertans that our genetic sequencing program here in Alberta can detect mutations of the virus, including this new strain.” WHO designates new COVID-19 variant ‘Omicron’ as variant of concern The B.1.1.529 variant was first reported by South Africa on Nov.