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
A single-digit breakthrough!
Wednesday, October 20, 2021
Reopening status
Phase 5 (tweaked a bit)
New cases
6
New recoveries
27
New deaths
0
Active cases
165
Total cases in Nova Scotia during pandemic
7,166
Total COVID deaths
98
The six cases are split across three health zones, the province says: Central zone has three, Western two and the last one's in Northern. Our map and table below, which put semi-hidden provincial data into highly accessible forms, show where cases are in the community health networks. They reveal both of the Western zone cases are in the Annapolis Valley network; in Central, Halifax has two new cases and Bedford/Sackville has one; and the case in the Northern zone is in Truro/Colchester.
One of those Annapolis Valley cases must be connected to the small outbreak at a hospital in Kentville. "A fourth patient in a non-COVID unit at Valley Regional Hospital has tested positive for COVID-19. One person is in intensive care at the hospital," says the province. "Nova Scotia Health Authority (NSHA) continues to test patients, staff and doctors identified as close contacts. As a precaution, NSHA has made testing available for staff and doctors on site who want to get tested."
Speaking of testing (swabbing segue alert!), local labs processed 3,121 tests yesterday, a big jump from the roughly 2,100 tests done the day before. Vaccinations, meanwhile, took a dip down to 2,354 people getting jabbed in clinics across the province yesterday, the lowest total reported since there were 2,012 shots announced September 21, basically a month ago. But every little bit helps, as they say, and a small increase in the province's vaccination rate—from 77.11 percent fully vaccinated yesterday to 77.24 percent today—is still an increase.
Hospitalizations are on the rise, both the number of COVID patients in hospital and the number of those patients who are sick enough to require intensive care. That's not great news at all, although luckily the numbers seem small. There are now 16 people in hospital, up from 14 yesterday, and five of those patients are in the ICU (compared to four yesterday).
Only one school—Halifax's École Mer et Monde—had a COVID notification yesterday, and the province had already announced its Oct 19-25 closure. According to Coast analysis of age-group data the province publishes, none of today's six cases were among kids age 11 and younger, while two of the cases are in people in the 12-to-19 age group.
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 19, 2021.
