165 new cases and 77 people recovered May 9

  Nova Scotia's COVID-19 caseload increases for the 23rd straight day today, as the province reports 165 new infections and only 77 resolved cases. "There are 138 cases in Central Zone, 16 in Eastern Zone, six in Western Zone and five in Northern Zone," says the daily disease update. Currently the province has 1,627 active cases.

Yesterday's report included two infected long-term care workers and a man in Central zone who died from COVID. Today improves on that with no deaths and a single long-term care infection. "One case in Central Zone is a homecare staff member with Northwood in Halifax," the province says. "Follow up is being done with clients and staff." One person went into hospital since yesterday—increasing the total to 50 hospitalized patients across the province—but the number of those in the ICU didn't change from seven.

Provincial labs processed 7,511 tests yesterday, well below the recent average of more that 11,000 tests per day, but then again the recent 45,000-test backlog has been cleared, leaving behind a pile of case data to be dealt with. Positive cases are the priority: "Nova Scotia Health has created a team that is immediately calling all positive cases to advise they are positive and determine whether they need supports," says the province. "Public health will continue to do detailed follow up on cases and contacts as soon as they are able."

The data-entry backlog is likely responsible for the large number of cases that aren't yet connected to a community health network in our case-location table (below). For a positive case in, say, the Central zone to be localized to one of the five community networks inside the zone—Halifax, Dartmouth, Bedford/Sackville, West Hants or Eastern Shore—the patient's postal code has to be in the Panorama public health system. Today, 26 of the new cases and 184 of the active cases in Central zone are missing postal codes; in the other zone there are no cases unassigned to community networks.

Sunday is also Mother's Day, a fact not lost on Robert Strang, the province's chief medical officer of health and COVID-daddy. "Nova Scotians have made changes to their daily lives to help reduce the spread of COVID-19 and it’s important to continue to follow the public health measures while celebrating Mother’s Day,” Strang says via the daily update. “Now is not the time to let our guard down, if you don’t live with your mother-figure, please celebrate Mother’s Day virtually.”