Jump to sections in this article:
Overview of today’s cases
Vaccination
Demographics
Testing
Potential exposure advisories
Today, Nova Scotia announced 111 new cases of COVID-19 over three days (Friday, Saturday, and Sunday).
The bulk of the cases are either directly related to multi-day faith gathering in late October in Amherst, or are secondary outbreaks arising from that original outbreak.
The only late October multi-day faith gathering in the Amherst area that I’m aware of is the “Bordertown Campmeeting” held at Gospel Light Baptist Church.
That chain of transmission has led to an outbreak at the East Cumberland Lodge long-term care home in Pugwash. Four residents and one staff member have tested positive, and one of those four residents is in hospital with the disease.
At a quickly called press meeting this afternoon, Barbara Adams, the minister of Seniors and Long-Term Care, said that 100% of the residents of the home and 96% of the staff are fully vaccinated.
The virus entered the home via a single employee who is connected through a transmission thread back to the faith gathering, but neither Adams nor Deputy Chief Medical Officer of Health Shelley Deeks would say if that employee is fully vaccinated.
At the briefing, one reporter compared the public and official outrage after the Dalhousie street party to the relative lack of same with regard to the faith-based gathering, and wondered why. Neither Adams nor Deeks had a response to that
By Nova Scotia Health zone, the 111 new cases break down as:
• 52 Western
• 31 Central
• 19 Northern
• 9 Eastern
There are now 255 known active cases in the province. Nine people are in hospital with the disease, one of whom is in ICU. Seventy-six people are considered newly recovered, which means they are no longer contagious and not necessarily that they aren’t sick.
Vaccination
Over the past 3 days (Friday, Saturday, Sunday), a total of 2,806 doses of vaccine were administered — 752 first doses, 1,458 second doses, and 596 third doses.
By end of day yesterday, 83.4% of the entire population (including young children) have received at least one dose of vaccine, and 78.9% have received at least two doses.
People 12 years old and older can also book a vaccination appointment here.
People in rural areas who need transportation to a vaccination appointment should contact Rural Rides, which will get you there and back home for just $5. You need to book the ride 24 hours ahead of time.
Demographics
By age cohort, today’s new cases break down as:
• 20 are aged 0-11
• 10 are aged 12-19
• 20 are aged 20-39
• 25 are aged 40-59
• 30 are aged 60-79
• 6 are aged 80 or older
The active cases across the province are distributed as follows:
Central Zone
• 44 in the Halifax Peninsula/Chebucto Community Health Network
• 6 in the Dartmouth/Southeastern Community Health Network
• 16 in the Bedford/Sackville Community Health Network
• 0 in the Eastern Shore/Musquodoboit Community Health Network
• 1 in the West Hants Community Health Network
• 13 not assigned to a Community Health Network
Total: 80
Eastern Zone
• 17 in the Cape Breton Community Health Network
• 0 in the Inverness, Victoria & Richmond Community Health Network
• 3 in the Antigonish & Guysborough Community Health Network
Total: 20
Northern Zone
• 2 in the Colchester/East Hants Community Health Network
• 1 in the Pictou Community Health Network
• 55 in the Cumberland Community Health Network
Total: 58
Western Zone
• 39 in the Annapolis and Kings Community Health Network
• 33 in the Lunenburg & Queens Community Health Network
• 25 in the Yarmouth, Shelburne & Digby Community Health Network
Total: 97
Testing
Nova Scotia Health labs completed 2,068 PCR tests yesterday. This does not include the antigen tests administered at the pop-up testing sites.
You do not need a health card to get tested.
Pop-up testing (antigen testing) is for asymptomatic people over 16 who have not been to the potential COVID exposure sites (see map below); results usually within 20 minutes. Pop-up testing has been scheduled for the following sites:
Monday
Halifax Convention Centre, noon-7pmTuesday
Halifax Convention Centre, noon-7pm
Alderney Gate, 4-6pmWednesday
Halifax Convention Centre, noon-7pm
Alderney Gate, 10am-2pm
You can volunteer to work at the pop-up testing sites here or here. No medical experience is necessary.
You can also get PCR testing at the Nova Scotia Health labs by going here. Appointments can be made for the IWK, or for various locations in each of the health zones (appointments may not be available at each site).
Potential exposure advisories
Nova Scotia Health issued several COVID exposure advisories, and five new school exposures were announced over the weekend.
We’ve collected all the active advisories for potential COVID exposures on bus routes and flights here. I’ll be adding schools to the map tonight.
The updated potential COVID exposure advisory map is below; you can zoom in and click on the coronavirus icons to get information about each site.
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I wonder when they will start handing out fines to the organizers of these events where all participants are supposed to show proof of vaccination. Pretty sure all those cases didn’t happen to vaccinated people (apart from the poor folks in the Lodge). I’d like to see some outrage on the part of NSHA, actually.
Blame someone – publicly ? – in Nova Scotia ? It’ll never happen. Not in our DNA. We’re so inbred and intermarried, its always someone, somewhere, in our extended families who will get in shit and the ‘family’ won’t approve washing dirty family laundry in public. Just as Cumberland folk will never ever publicly blame parents for burning their kids to death through their mis use of cigarettes and lack of smoke detectors. Moving beyond ‘no fault’ insurance, we are a ‘no fault’ society. Its why our youth flee us and immigrants avoid us – we Nova Scotians are backward-looking and inward looking —— not forward looking and outward looking.
This is a simple matter of enforcing the law, which was clearly broken in this case. They fined partying Dal students, so should also fine partying Baptists. A 3 day gathering is not “an essential service”. Making “faith services” essential has resulted in confusion and division with those communities – most of them have had virtual services for the past couple of years, so why would we now allow groups of unvaccinated people to gather for 2 hours on Fridays, Saturdays or Sundays (or whenever). Require POV for all faith activities, and start enforcing the rules for all..