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.
Map of NS community health networks Table of community networks New and active cases Vaccination rate
A death by COVID
Thursday, July 22, 2021
Reopening status
Phase 4
New cases
0
New recoveries
0
New deaths
1
Active cases
11
Days in a row without cases
1
Total cases in Nova Scotia during pandemic
5,880
Total COVID deaths
93
Today, however, there are no new cases, nobody is in the hospital with COVID and there are just 11 active cases. More than 50 percent of the population is fully vaccinated! We are in Phase 4 of reopening, free to gather by the dozen indoors and out, and dance past midnight in bars. Today's death is utterly out of the blue, the shock compounding the grief and challenging our understanding of how safe we should feel.
It’s a painful confirmation of what John Ross told The Coast's Lyndsay Armstrong yesterday about this phase of the pandemic: “We’re facing the reality that we really want it all to be over, but it’s not over yet.”
“On behalf of all Nova Scotians, I wish to extend my deepest condolences to the family and friends of the woman who has passed away,” says public health head Robert Strang in today's provincial report. The woman who died was in her 50s, and lived in the Central health zone.
Adding to the doubt this death raises, the province's numbers don't make sense. Yesterday, after seven new cases were reported, Nova Scotia had 11 active cases. Today, there are no reported new cases or recoveries, and one case closed the worst way possible with the woman's death, so there should be 10 active cases left. However, both the provincial report and Nova Scotia's data dashboard say there are still 11 active cases. Very strange.
Passing 75 percent for sure
In much more positive news from the province today, after 16,673 vaccinations were injected across the Nova Scotia on Wednesday, including 1,447 jabs to people who hadn't been vaccinated before, now it's certain that more than 75 percent of the population has at least one dose (see chart below). Even though doctor Strang repeatedly said we reached the 75 percent target earlier thanks to 8,000 Armed Forces members who are vaxxed but uncounted in Nova Scotia, it's been hard to truly believe it when the provincial dashboard was showing less than 75 percent. But the dashboard is finally past 75 percent, period, no invisible military force needed.
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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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 21, 2021.