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
Rising to 23 new cases
A week that started so well for the humans ends on an uptick for the stupid disease. And with the province no longer reporting case numbers on the weekend, we'll all have to wait until Monday to find out where this leads. Our strategy is to worry about it as little as possible, while having a rapid test handy for those times the worry can't be denied.
What does this uptick look like? After reporting just six new cases Wednesday, Nova Scotia had 19 yesterday and now is announcing 23 new infections in its Friday plague report. But on the bright side, recoveries have been keeping pace: With 26 people recovering from their COVID infections since yesterday, the caseload is down to 160 active cases. That's the fourth day of drops in a row, falling from 208 active cases reported Monday.
And while there remain 15 people in hospital due to COVID, like yesterday, the number of those patients in the ICU fell from five on Thursday to four today. So Nova Scotia has 160 people known to have COVID, just 15 of them are sick enough to be in hospital and only four of those hospital patients are in intensive care.
Localizing the 23 new cases, the province says there are "13 cases in Central Zone, six cases in Western Zone, three cases in Northern Zone and one case in Eastern Zone." The Coast localizes things further, by doing an analysis of information at Nova Scotia's data dashboard that isn't included in the written report. Our map and table, below, of cases in the 14 provincial community health networks reveal the Annapolis Valley network has all of the Western zones six cases, while in Central the 13 cases are spread across Halifax (six cases), Dartmouth (five) and Bedford/Sackville (two new cases). Amherst/Cumberland has the three cases in Northern zone, and Sydney/Glace Bay is the community health network where Eastern zone's one new patient lives.
Testing numbers are slightly below average at 2,780 tests completed by provincial labs yesterday, and vaccination numbers are also a bit down from yesterday, as 2,568 people got jabbed at various clinics across the province. Nova Scotia is now 77.77 percent fully vaccinated, as shown on the vaccination rate chart lower down this page.
E.B. Chandler Junior High and Amherst Regional High School received COVID-exposure notices yesterday, according to the database of exposures connected to public schools. Four of today's cases are in the 0-to-11-year-old age group and three are in the 12-19 group, which would capture any junior or senior high students with new infections.
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 21, 2021.
