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Four new cases of COVID-19 were announced in Nova Scotia today (Friday, Jan. 2s).
One case is in Nova Scotia Health’s Central Zone and is related to travel outside Atlantic Canada.
One case is in the Northern Zone, and is a close contact of a previously announced case.
And two cases are in the Western Zone; both are related to travel outside Atlantic Canada. One of those cases is a student at Acadia University, who self-isolated for the required 14 days, and then returned to campus and to class. He then became symptomatic and got tested. Dr. Strang said today such positive cases after the 14-day period aren’t unheard of; close contacts of the person are being tested.
There are still 22 known active cases in the province. No one is in hospital with the disease.
The active cases are distributed as follows:
• 7 in the Halifax Peninsula / Chebucto Community Health Network in the Central Zone
• 2 in the Bedford / Sackville Community Health Network in the Central Zone
• 5 in the Colchester / East Hants Community Health Network in the Northern Zone
• 1 in the Pictou Community Health Network in the Northern Zone
• 3 in the Cape Breton Community Health Network in the Eastern Zone
• 1 in the Inverness, Victoria & Richmond Community Health Network in the Eastern Zone
• 1 active case in the Lunenburg & Queens Community Health Network in the Western Zone
• 1 in the Annapolis and King’s Community Health Network in the Western Zone
Yes, that only adds up to 21. I don’t know where the 22nd case is.
The case connected École acadienne de Truro that was announced yesterday has been determined to be a close contact of a previously announced case. The school will be closed to students through Wednesday.
Also yesterday, a case was reported that was a worker on the Newfoundland ferry. A second ferry worker has also tested positive, but that person lives in Newfoundland so is reported for that province. All 60 workers on the ferry have been tested, and so far no one else has tested positive. Nova Scotia Health will soon issue a potential COVID exposure advisory for passengers on a series of ferry runs; when that becomes available, we’ll update the exposure map below.
Nova Scotia Health labs conducted 1,450 tests yesterday.
As of yesterday, 10,575 doses of vaccine have been administered. Of those, 2,705 people have received their second dose. A shipment of Pfizer vaccine was received this week and has been distributed to the cold storage sites, but no further shipments of Pfizer are expected for the next two weeks, at least. The Moderna vaccine will arrive, however.
Here are the new daily cases and seven-day rolling average since the start of the second wave (Oct. 1):
And here is the active caseload for the second wave:
Here is the possible exposure map:
As a result of continued low case numbers, Dr. Strang has loosened the restrictions on sports and arts and culture organizations. Starting Monday:
• sports teams can start playing games, but spectators are not permitted and there can be no games or tournaments involving teams that would not regularly play against each other [i.e., no tournaments]
• non-team sports can also resume competition, but without spectators and only among competitors who would regularly compete against each other [Strang is here referring to sports such as track, tennis, and wrestling, which are technically team sports but involve mostly individual competition]
• the limit for sports practices, training and games and arts and culture rehearsals and classes will return to 50
• arts and culture performances can only be virtual and cannot have in-person spectators
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