COVID cases and news for Nova Scotia on Thursday, Jul 8 | The Coast Halifax

COVID cases and news for Nova Scotia on Thursday, Jul 8

Updates including briefings, infections and our daily map of community COVID-19.

NOTE: This day is now over. Click for the latest on COVID-19 from The Coast. Or for an informative look back at Nova Scotia's evolving pandemic response, keep on reading.



2 infections, 2 recoveries

With two new COVID-19 cases and two people recovering from the disease, the province holds steady Thursday at 39 active cases, the same caseload as yesterday.

"The cases are in Eastern Zone," says the province's daily COVID update. "One is a close contact of a previously reported case and the other is under investigation." Both cases are in the Sydney/Glace Bay community health network, as shown by our map and table of disease activity in the networks.

Two people are now in hospital with COVID, one of them in the ICU. This is an unwelcome increase from the one hospitalized patient in yesterday's report, who was in intensive care.

Nova Scotia's labs processed 3,315 tests on Wednesday, staying above the current average of about 3,000 daily tests. And clinics around the province injected 26,831 doses of vaccine into arms yesterday—the most in a day so far this week.

About 1,500 of those jabs were first doses into previously unvaccinated people, another high for the week that pushed the province to having 73.5 percent of the population (or at least 73.5 percent of the population, as top doc Robert Strang says the number is actually higher) vaccinated with at least one dose. More than 25,000 people got their second dose. As our vaccination rate chart at the bottom of the page shows, if current trends continue, tomorrow the province will reach the point of having MORE people vaccinated with both doses than with just one dose.


Map of cases in community health networks

This infographic was created by The Coast using daily case data from Nova Scotia's official COVID-19 dashboard. Our goal is for this to be the best NS COVID map around, clearer and more informative than the province or any other media organization provides. To get there we do an analysis of the data to find each day's new and resolved case numbers in the 14 community health networks, information the province does not provide. For a different but still highly accessible approach to the latest COVID statistics, check out our case table.

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Case table of the health networks

The Coast uses data logged from Nova Scotia's official COVID-19 dashboard in order to provide this tabulated breakdown. The province reports the number of active cases in each of Nova Scotia's 14 community health networks, but we do the math to be able to report the new and resolved case numbers. We also map the data to provide a different view of the case information.

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New and active cases visualized

This interactive graph charts COVID activity in Nova Scotia's third wave, comparing daily new cases with that day’s active caseload. The dark line tracks the rise and fall of new infections reported by the province, which hit a Nova Scotian pandemic record high of 227 cases in a single day on May 7. The green area is the province's caseload, which peaked May 10 at 1,655 active cases. Click or however over any point on the graph and the detail for that moment will pop up. To focus on just new or active cases, you can click the legend at the top left of the graph to hide or reveal that data set.

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Recoveries and infections graphed

A person who tests positive for COVID-19 counts as a new case, the beginning of a problem for both the province and that person. The best ending to the problem is the patient recovers from the disease. This interactive chart compares how many problems started (the red area of new cases) to how many ended (the blue area's recoveries) each day in Nova Scotia's third wave, revealing growth trends along the way. Click or hover over any point on the graph and the detail for that day will pop up, to reveal exactly how quickly things change: May 7 had Nova Scotia's most-ever infections diagnosed in one day, 227 new cases, more than triple the 71 recoveries that day. Two weeks later, May 21, had a record recoveries, 197 in a day, more than double the 84 new cases. To focus on just new cases or recoveries, you can click the legend at the top left of the graph to hide or reveal that data set.

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Average and daily new cases

Knowing the average number of new cases Nova Scotia has every day—the orange area in this graph—is useful to show the trend of infections without one day's ups or downs distorting the picture. Having the daily new cases as well, the dark line on the graph, gives a sense of how each day compares to the average. We use the rolling (AKA moving or running) 7-day average of daily data reported by the province; here's a good explainer of what a rolling average is.

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Vaccination in the population

How many Nova Scotians already have one dose of vaccine? How many are fully vaccinated with two doses? And how close are we to the herd immunity goal of 75 percent of the province fully vaxxed? These questions are answered in our chart of the vaccination rate in Nova Scotia since the province started reporting these numbers in January 2021, breaking out people who've had a single dose separate from those who've had the full complement of two doses. (Here's more information about the 75 percent target and what it will take to get there.) Note: The province doesn't update vaccination numbers on weekends.

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Click here for yesterday's COVID-19 news roundup, for July 3, 2021.