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
7 new cases Monday
Monday, August 9, 2021
Reopening status
Phase 4
New cases
7
New recoveries
4
New deaths
0
Active cases
15
Reports in a row with cases
7
Total cases in Nova Scotia during pandemic
5,907
Total COVID deaths
93
Lower down on this page are The Coast's map and table of C19 in Nova Scotia's community health networks. These reveal that two of the seven cases are in the Halifax community network, two are in Yarmouth/Shelburne/Digby, and there's one each in Dartmouth, Bedford/Sackville and Pictou County.
The province had four people recover from their COVID infections since last report—three in Halifax, one in Dartmouth—so there are now 16 active cases in the province. This is the highest level in 25 days, dating back to July 15 when there were 22 active cases. For a detailed look at the recent new and active cases, we have a graph for that below. One patient is currently in hospital, severe enough to be in the ICU, due to COVID.
The testing rate sagged as the weekend wore on, from nearly 3,500 tests completed by local labs on Friday, to under 1,700 on Sunday. And vaccination numbers continued their ongoing slide.
Injections done last Wednesday hit a recent low, as we discussed Thursday when the report came out. Then the Friday report went even lower, just 7,568 jabs completed by clinics across the province on Thursday. Today the province is reporting 7,779 injections, which is a slight uptick compared to Friday's report, but don't start celebrating. The 7,779 reported today is the total for three days of injections—Friday, Saturday and Sunday—so this isn't any sort of improvement.
Currently nearly 67 percent of the province has been fully vaccinated with two doses, a figure that needs to reach 75 percent before we can go to the next level of reopening, Phase 5. The population with at least one dose climbed slightly from 76.56 percent Friday to 76.68 percent today.
A vaccine passport for Nova Scotia?
Technically Iain Rankin is still premier of Nova Scotia during the current election campaign. But it was Timberlea-Prospect candidate and NS Liberal Party leader Rankin who stood in his suit and tie before a row of Nova Scotia flags this morning to talk about the ScotiaPass vaccine passport. “One of our first acts as a re-elected government would be to dig in to ask officials how we could most effectively use a province-wide vaccine certificate,” he said. Click for The Coast's full story about the ScotiaPass campaign promise.
Canadian cases climbing
Remember a couple weeks ago, The Coast's Kyle Shaw wrote a story comparing Canadian COVID infections to the rest of the world? Yeah, it's fine if you don't. The idea is that after the third wave ended in June, cases started sharply increasing around the globe in July, evidence of a growing fourth wave driven by the delta variant of the disease. At the time Canada didn't have that increase, but now it looks like it's arrived.
Canada's post-third wave low ebb came on Saturday, July 17. With the new COVID cases reported by all the provinces and territories that day, the 7-day moving average was just 381 new infections per day across the county. Then for the next week or so, the rate stayed around that level. It rose to 424 daily cases Saturday, July 24, but fell back to 385 the next day.
But then it started a steady climb. By the next Saturday, July 31, the rate was nearly double what it has been two weeks earlier. (That's around when Canada's top public health doctor Theresa Tam said the "epidemic trajectory" forecast "suggests that we are at the start of the delta-driven fourth wave.") And last Friday, August 6, the rate went above 1,000 new cases per day for the first time since the middle of June.
The increase isn't happening everywhere in Canada. Ontario and Nova Scotia's infection rates have stayed flat since the third wave, for example. British Columbia and Alberta, however, are among the places that aren't so lucky.
On July 4, BC's moving average fell to 28 cases per day, while it was 218 per day August 4, an increase of nearly 800 percent. Over the same span, Alberta went from 40 cases per day to 219, more than 500 percent up.
Here's the chart of Canadian infection, showing the recent rise at the right-hand side. The Coast will keep updating it with the daily case counts as we all watch to see how big this surge grows.
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
Click here for the latest COVID-19 news roundup, from Friday, August 6, 2021.
