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.

7 new cases and a drop to 60 active cases

Wednesday, September 1, 2021

Reopening status
Phase 4

New cases
7

New recoveries
12

New deaths
0

Active cases
60

Total cases in Nova Scotia during pandemic
6,038

Total COVID deaths
94

Happy September, everybody. We’ve entered the 19th month of the pandemic in Nova Scotia, the brand-new premier just fired the head of the provincial health authority, Hurricane Ida is on the way, summer is on the way out and the World Health Organization is now watching mu, the latest COVID variant. Everything is awesome!

Let’s start with the best of the bad news of the day: Nova Scotia has seven new COVID cases.

Those seven infections might even be good news. We’ll explain why, starting with the averages. From The Coast’s statistical status report when Nova Scotia reached 6,000 cases on Monday, we know the average case count in the province through this whole nightmare is 11.3 infections per day. At seven cases, Wednesday is below average. That alone is positive.

According to the province’s daily disease update, all the new cases are in Central zone. “Four are related to travel and three are close contacts of previously reported cases,” the province says. Note that it’s not saying anything about mysterious cases under investigation or community spread. What a relief. (FYI, the Halifax community health network and the Bedford network both have three of the cases, our map and table of the networks reveal, while the location of the seventh patient’s home is “not yet known” as the table puts it.)

There are 12 recoveries today, more than offsetting the new cases to drive the active caseload down—for the second straight day!—to 60 active cases. This week began at 71 active cases, so getting to 60 by Wednesday is more good news. Check it out for yourself with our graph of new and active casesfurther down on this page.

We’ll close with what’s become a standard set of three measures in these Coast reports. Hospitalizations are at zero, which means no COVID patients are sick enough to be in a hospital, stressing the health care system. Testing is up, with local labs processing 3,584 tests yesterday compared to the current average of about 2,700 per day. And vaccination rates keep rising—the vax rollout has gotten painfully slow but hasn’t completely stopped yet—as 2,059 people got jabbed yesterday and the Nova Scotia went from 70.90 percent fully vaccinated on Tuesday to 71.05 percent today.

Positive. Positive. Positive.

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 COmVID 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. 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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Click here for yesterday's COVID-19 news roundup, for August 31, 2021.

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This article appears in Sep 1-30, 2021.

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