COVID cases and news for Nova Scotia on Thursday, Dec 23

The X-Ring Xplosion of COVID cases is overwhelming Nova Scotia’s data dashboard, so until it is fixed we are suspending our map and charts that depend on dashboard data. In the meantime, you can still enjoy these infographics:
New and active cases Vaccination rate Nova Scotia’s third and fourth waves Breakthrough infections Canada’s fourth wave

Three bonkers things we learned about how Nova Scotia reports COVID information

After two weeks of struggling to keep up with the massive increase in fresh infections, the province announced some tweaks to its pandemic reporting today. “Nova Scotia will change how it reports daily COVID-19 data due to delays in data entry caused by the recent high number of cases,” the press release says. We were struck by three things.

1. The current flood of cases didn’t just swamp Nova Scotia’s ability to track infections, it also caused some patients to appear in the case count multiple times. “Throughout most of the pandemic, the Province has reported data from Panorama, public health’s disease information system. However, since December 10, the Province has shifted to reporting the number of positive lab test results to more accurately reflect the COVID-19 situation in the province, given the backlog in Panorama data entry,” the province explains. “Though this data is more accurate overall, it does contain a small number of duplicate results because some people have been tested more than once.”

As of now, duplicates are being removed so the numbers are more accurate. But—and this is the wild part—this removal is only happening on weekdays. “On weekends and holidays, the number of positive cases will be reported based on raw lab data, which may include a small number of duplicates,” the province says. Corrections will happen after the weekend/holiday in question.

2. The province’s data dashboard is back from its two-week holiday (see our delight below). But it’s not all the way back. The dashboard “will temporarily include the estimated number of active cases and some data will be removed,” says the province. What data will be removed? Why? And if the active case count is an estimate, how is it calculated?

Considering this announcement is the province’s attempt to explain what happened to its information-sharing apparatus and rebuild any lost faith in the system, the lack of transparency here is boggling.

3. “These reporting changes are expected to be temporary and last four to six weeks. The Province will then resume reporting Panorama data.” Emphasis added, as we try to get used to the idea of the omicron wave keeping Nova Scotia this helpless into February.

Another day, another record

The utterly monstrous, mind-roasting winter of omicron continues with the province today reporting 689 new COVID infections. That is up more than 150 cases from yesterday, setting the new standard for most cases Nova Scotia has reported in a day.

Today is also the first day in two weeks that the province has announced a number of recoveries and an active case count. This comes none too soon for The Coast, because as we said yesterday, our rough estimate of a count was approaching its best-before date. Yesterday we gave 4,087* active cases as Nova Scotia’s maximum caseload, and today the province says “there are an estimated 3,844 active cases of COVID-19 in Nova Scotia.” (Note that the province’s number is also an estimate. The Thursday report doesn’t say anything about how this estimate is calculated, but because it is the number the province is officially providing, we will not use an asterisk as we did when reporting The Coast’s estimate.)

Out of those 3,844 active cases, there are 14 patients in hospital due to their COVID infections, and four of the 14 are sick enough to be in the ICU. Both of these numbers are up from the 10 hospitalizations and three people in intensive care reported yesterday.

Today brings a new outbreak at a long-term care centre—Roseway Manor in Shelburne. “Two staff members have tested positive for COVID-19. Neither is in hospital or has had contact with residents,” the Thursday report says. “All staff are fully vaccinated, and 98 per cent of residents are fully vaccinated and have had a booster shot.” The province says there aren’t any new cases at any of the other long-term care and hospital outbreak sites reported in recent days.

The province says today’s 689 new cases are spread across the province as follows: 498 cases in the Central health authority zone, 79 cases in Northern zone, 57 cases in Western and 55 in Eastern. Although the province’s data dashboard is finally back in operation (🏆🍾🚀) the numbers it’s reporting after two weeks on the fritz don’t make enough sense to reinstate our maps and charts yet. We will see how tomorrow’s dashboard compares to today’s—rather than how today’s compares to the dashboard of two weeks ago—in hopes of bringing you back our full complement of data visualization tools if at all possible.

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. Note: From Friday, Dec 10 through today, Nova Scotia has been too overwhelmed by new COVID cases to report recoveries or an official active case count; the active case numbers on this graph for those dates have been calculated by adding each day’s new cases to the last official active count, and are therefore a maximum active caseload.

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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. Also, from Friday, Dec 10 through today, Nova Scotia has been too overwhelmed by new COVID cases to report recoveries or an official active case count; the active case numbers on this graph for those dates have been calculated by adding each day’s reported new cases to the last official active count, and are therefore a maximum active caseload.

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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. Also, since the start of third doses, provincial vax reports have produced strange results—including some negative numbers—when graphed; The Coast is working to sort this out and we ask for your patience while we do.

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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 22, 2021.