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 Canada’s fourth wave NS breakthrough infections
Some Nova Scotians will get third doses
Nova Scotia is announcing that people who are "moderately to severely immunocompromised or who are taking medications that substantially suppress their immune system" can get a third shot of vaccine. Third jabs will start going out Tuesday, October 19 according to the provincial press release. As well as people with immunity-related needs for an extra shot, the province is making it available to Nova Scotians "who need to travel for work to meet entry requirements or avoid isolation in a country that does not recognize mixed doses. For example, first dose AstraZeneca and second dose Pfizer."
Go here for more information about the province's third-dose plan, including the list of requirements for travellers to qualify.
A slight uptick in new and active cases
Thursday, October 14, 2021
Reopening status
Phase 5 (modified)
New cases
26
New recoveries
15
New deaths
0
Active cases
198
Total cases in Nova Scotia during pandemic
7,059
Total COVID deaths
98
In purely positive news of small changes, the number of people in hospital dropped from 16 in yesterday's report to 12 in the Thursday provincial report (with the number of those patients in the ICU holding steady at two). And after two days in a row where the numbers presented in the report are different from the numbers at the Nova Scotia COVID data dashboard, today there are no worrying discrepancies.
To clarify, on Tuesday the province announced 99 new cases for the Thanksgiving weekend, while the dashboard reported only 93 new cases. And yesterday the written report said there were 24 new cases, but the dashboard said there were only 22. With a discrepancy of eight cases in just two days of reporting, it's a relief that we can today say the dashboard and the written report both show 26 new cases.
The province says the cases are spread across the province as 23 in the Central health authority zone, two in Western and one in Eastern. Our analysis of the data dashboard lets us produce a map and table of COVID in the community health networks (see below), which reveals the Halifax community network has 14 of today's new cases, the most of any of the 14 networks that make up Nova Scotia. Bedford/Sackville has the next-most cases, at eight, followed by the Annapolis Valley with two.
In its report, the province says five more schools got notices of COVID exposures yesterday. It offers this link for details. In our report, we follow the link to tell you the five schools are Dartmouth South Academy, Duc d'Anville Elementary (which the province shut down this week to limit disease spread), Joseph Howe Elementary, École Beaubassin and École Mer et Monde. Like yesterday, 12 of the new cases being reported today are in kids up to and including 11 years old, the only age group currently not allowed to be vaccinated against COVID according to Health Canada rules.
The province says 3,357 COVID tests were completed by local labs yesterday, a huge increase from the roughly 2,000 tests reported the day before. Vaccinations are opposite, with a large drop to 3,153 arms getting jabbed across Nova Scotia yesterday, versus more than 5,300 shots reported the day before.
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. Note: On July 23, 2021, Nova Scotia announced that it will no longer update case numbers on weekends.
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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. Note: Effective July 23, 2021, the province no longer updates case numbers on weekends.
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New and active cases visualized
Nova Scotia's third wave of COVID grew in April, 2021, peaked in May (227 new cases in one day was the maximum) and subsided in June. On July 17, the province reached five active cases—its lowest level in more than eight months—and an election was called. So when it came time to reset The Coast's chart comparing daily new cases with that day’s active caseload, in order to better reflect disease levels after the third wave, we started from July 17. Two months later, on September 14, the province formally announced the arrival of the fourth wave of COVID. The dark line tracks the rise and fall of new infections reported by the province; the green area is the province's caseload. Click or hover over any point on the graph and the detail for that moment will pop up. To focus on just new or active cases, click the legend at the top left of the graph to hide or reveal that data set. Note: As of July 23, 2021, the province stopped updating case numbers on weekends. And you can click here for the version of this graph that includes the third wave and its May 10 crest of 1,655 active cases.
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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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Canadian cases in 2021
There was a point in July 2021, when the delta variant was causing an increase in COVID infections around the world, that Canada seemed safe from the fourth wave. By August, however, that point had passed, and case numbers around the country started to rise again. This graph charts the number of new infections every day in each province and territory, using the 7-day moving average to mitigate single-day anomalies (including a lack of weekend reporting in several jurisdictions including British Columbia and Nova Scotia). To focus on individual places, click the place names at the top of the chart to turn that data on or off.
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Breakthrough infections in Nova Scotia
On Fridays, the province's daily COVID report includes statistics about COVID breakthroughs—infections, hospitalizations and deaths among people who are fully or partially vaccinated. The province reports its numbers as a cumulative total: all the breakthrough cases dating from March 15, 2021 to the latest update. The Coast does an analysis to break the information about new cases down by each weekly reporting period, in order to offer our readers the following unique view of the same information, so you can better understand the fluctuations in breakthrough infections as they happen. Note: Our bar chart only dates back to June because the province didn't start this reporting until summer 2021.
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Click here for yesterday's COVID-19 news roundup, for October 13, 2021.
