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.
New and active cases Vaccination rate Nova Scotia’s third and fourth waves Breakthrough infections Canada’s fourth wave
Immediate restrictions for schools
Some of the new COVID-restricting restrictions announced today by the province take effect on Friday (see below). But in Nova Scotia’s schools, a batch of restrictions came into force immediately—which, in practical terms, means for tomorrow’s school day. Cutting and pasting straight from the provincial announcement, the new anti-COVID measures now in effect at schools include:
- school sports are limited to team skills training only
- no assemblies and no holiday concerts
- no mixing of classes, including a pause on activities like Reading Buddies
- essential visitors only in schools
- masks are required indoors and outdoors where physical distancing cannot be maintained
- limited access to cafeterias
The province says these are the rules “until the holiday break next week,” but presumably if the current outbreak continues, the restrictions could be extended.
114 cases plus new restrictions for Nova Scotia
The province is reporting 114 new cases of COVID today, the fourth day in a row with case numbers above 100. As in recent days, there is no indication in the report of how many people (if any) recovered from their C19 infections, so we will add the 114 new cases to the running total caseload we’ve calculated to say—with the caveat suggested by an asterisk—there are currently 655* active cases.
“There are 55 cases in Central Zone, 52 cases in Eastern Zone, five cases in Western Zone, and two cases in Northern Zone,” the report says, going on to confirm that the data dashboard powered by the Panorama public health tracking system still hasn’t caught up to the X-Ring weekend spike in cases. “Because of the outbreak at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, the number of positive cases being released today are lab results, not Panorama results. This continues to better reflect the situation on the ground.”
At today’s provincial briefing with premier Tim Houston, top doc Robert Strang and health minister Michelle Thompson, new masking, gathering and distancing measures were unveiled. These take effect Friday in hopes of curbing the outbreak, essentially moving Nova Scotia back to Phase 4 of opening; we have a full report from the briefing here.
Omicron is in Nova Scotia
Can you believe it was just 17 days ago that the world first heard about omicron? There’s already been so much talk about this latest COVID-19 variant it feels like it’s been with us for ages. But it wasn’t even confirmed to be in Nova Scotia—until today.
In its regular Monday pandemic update, the province announced that the National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg has identified 40 cases of omicron in samples Nova Scotia sent for testing. The report gives no other information about the omicron discovery, such as how many samples the lab checked to find 40 with omicron, or when the earliest-known NS omicron patient get diagnosed. But maybe such details are just empty trivia. Do you know, or care, when the first case of the delta variant actually arrived?
More important right now in Nova Scotia is another Monday COVID announcement: “The Province is reporting an outbreak at Parkland Antigonish, a seniors living community. Two residents and two staff members from the retirement home have tested positive and one staff member from Mary’s Court, the licensed long-term care neighbourhood, has tested positive,” says today’s report. “No one is in hospital. All staff and residents are fully vaccinated, and all residents of Mary’s Court have had a booster shot. Public health is working with the facility to prevent further spread. Increased public health measures and restrictions are in place.”
Whether it’s omicron or delta in the Parkland community, we hope anyone who catches COVID there safely recovers.
Houstrang briefing at 3pm
With the province so deep into outbreak mode that it issued COVID updates on Saturday and Sunday, you probably won’t be shocked to learn premier Tim Houston and chief medical officer of health Robert Strang are giving a briefing today. But in an unusual move, health minister Michelle Thompson is Zooming into the briefing from Antigonish, home to St. Francis Xavier University and its now-infamous X-Ring superspreader weekend. Watch live at novascotia.ca/stayinformed/webcast and/or @nsgov on Facebook, or catch it later at the Nova Scotia government’s YouTube page.
Comparing active cases in the third and fourth waves
In December, the town of Antigonish became ground zero for an inter-provincial COVID outbreak due to a weekend of superspreader events connected to the annual presentation of X-Rings at St. Francis Xavier University. But how bad is the outbreak, really? The following chart lets you compare Nova Scotia’s active cases, dating from the third wave in April through the fourth wave and its infection Xplosion, using case data from provincial pandemic reports. The chart will be updated when provincial reporting allows.
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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 purple line tracks the rise and fall of daily new infections reported by the province; the green area is the province’s caseload. In mid-November, The Coast added a golden line to show the 7-day moving average of daily new cases, effectively a smoothed-out version of the purple line that puts the ups and downs into bigger context. Click or hover over any point on the graph and the detail for that moment will pop up. To focus on just some information, 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 December 12, 2021.
Related Stories
COVID cases and news for Nova Scotia on Sunday, Dec 12
COVID cases and news for Nova Scotia on Saturday, Dec 11
COVID cases and news for Nova Scotia on Friday, Dec 10
Omicron arrives and COVID restrictions return following four triple-digit case days
COVID cases and news for Nova Scotia on Tuesday, Dec 14
COVID cases and news for Nova Scotia on Wednesday, Dec 15
COVID cases and news for Nova Scotia on Thursday, Dec 16
This article appears in Dec 9-29, 2021.
