1 new COVID case on election Tuesday, Aug 17 | COVID-19 | Halifax, Nova Scotia | THE COAST
covid1-1.png

1 new COVID case on election Tuesday, Aug 17

Nova Scotia is down to 22 active cases as Tim Houston becomes premier.

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.



1 new case, 1 new premier

On the election day that brings the Progressive Conservative Party back to power and its leader Tim Houston to the premiership, Nova Scotia reports just one new case of COVID-19. It's a travel-related case in the Central health authority zone, says the province's Tuesday disease report; the case is in the Halifax community health network according to our map and table.

There are three recoveries today, pushing the current caseload down to 22 active cases. One person is in hospital, in the ICU, like yesterday and the last couple of weeks.

Only 1,736 PCR COVID tests were completed in Nova Scotia yesterday, well below the moving daily average of over 2,600 tests, but not the lowest level in months. Vaccinations, however, are seriously low. Clinics across the province injected 1,644 people on Monday, the fewest in a province report since March. Our vaccination chart shows that 68.24 percent of the NS population is reported as fully vaccinated, and 77.05 percent of Nova Scotians have at least one dose.

Finally, even though Nova Scotia's chief medical officer of health Robert Strang has said the province's pandemic situation is good enough that we don't need regular briefings from him and the premier, we hope to get a few sessions between the top doc and the new boss, if for no other reason than we can call them the Houstrang sessions.


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.

jump back to the top


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.

jump back to the top


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. 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.

jump back to the top


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.

jump back to the top


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.

jump back to the top


Click here for yesterday's COVID-19 news roundup, for August 16, 2021.

Comments (0)
Add a Comment