“Nova Scotians have made changes to their daily lives to limit the spread of COVID-19 and it’s no different for St. Patrick’s Day,” says premier Iain Rankin in today’s provincial pandemic press release. “We have been fortunate to have little to no new cases recently, but we know that the virus can quickly find its way back into our communities. It’s important to adjust your St. Patrick’s Day celebrations so as to be as safe as possible.”
Rankin’s partner in leading the province through Covid treats the leprechaun-hued drinking holiday with similar solemnity.
“St. Patrick’s Day celebrations need to look much different this year,” says public health head Robert Strang, Nova Scotia’s chief medical officer of health. “Keep your gatherings small, stick with your consistent social group, wear a mask, wash your hands and stay home if you are feeling unwell.”
If Strankin’s wet-blanket routine isn’t enough to make your green beer go flat, the province has two new C19 infections waiting at the end of the rainbow. “The first case is in Central Zone and is a close contact of a previously reported case,” says the update. “The other case is in Western Zone and is related to travel outside Atlantic Canada. The person is self-isolating, as required.”
The Central zone case is in the Halifax community health network as our table below shows. In the Western zone, the new infection is in the Wolfville health network.
But it’s not all wilted shamrocks for Nova Scotia today. Four people with the disease recovered since yesterday, leaving the province with just 15 active cases—the last time the number was this low was nearly a month ago, February 19. And where two C19 patients were in the hospital yesterday, both in the ICU, now there is only one person hospitalized, and they aren’t in intensive care.
Vaccinations are steadily on the rise this week. Monday’s report announced 1,186 jabs delivered on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. There were 2,067 inoculations Monday, yesterday’s report said. And on Tuesday 2,208 doses got injected, says the report today. In recent weeks, the highest daily vaccination total has consistently come on Wednesday, so maybe tomorrow’s report will bring a St. Paddy’s pot of gold after all.
Where Nova Scotia’s COVID-19 cases are on Wednesday, March 17
| HEALTH ZONE & NETWORK | NEW CASES | CLOSED CASES | ACTIVE CASES |
|---|---|---|---|
| Western zone totals | 1 new | 0 closed | 7 active |
| Yarmouth | – | – | – |
| Lunenburg | – | – | – |
| Wolfville | 1 | – | 7 |
| Central zone totals | 1 new | 3 closed | 8 active |
| West Hants | – | – | – |
| Halifax | 1 | – | 3 |
| Dartmouth | – | – | 3 |
| Bedford | – | 3 | 2 |
| Eastern Shore | – | – | – |
| Northern zone totals | 0 new | 1 closed | 0 active |
| Truro | – | – | – |
| Amherst | – | 1 | – |
| Pictou | – | – | – |
| Eastern zone totals | 0 new | 0 closed | 0 active |
| Antigonish | – | – | – |
| Inverness | – | – | – |
| Sydney | – | – | – |
TABLE NOTES The totals for the health zones (Northern, Eastern, Western, Central) may be different than the totals you’d get by adding up the numbers in the Community Health Networks that make up each zone, because the province doesn’t track all cases at the community network level. The zone totals reflect every case in the area; the community network numbers only show cases that can be localized to a region inside the bigger area. The names of the community networks here have been adapted/shortened for simplicity (click to download the province’s PDF map with the exhaustively complete network names). All data comes from the Nova Scotia COVID-19 data page. We use a dash (-) instead of a zero (0) where applicable in the health network numbers to make the table easier to read.
This article appears in Mar 1-31, 2021.
