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Overview
Demographics
Testing
Vaccination
Schools
Potential exposure advisories
One-hundred-and-eighteen new cases of COVID-19 are newly announced today (Tuesday, May 10). As has been the case in recent days, there’s still not much clarity on the state of the backlog of unrecorded positive cases that was announced Friday. Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Robert Strang said yesterday that he anticipated the backlog would be cleared “by midweek.”
Of today’s newly announced cases, 98 are in Nova Scotia Health’s Central Zone, 11 are in the Eastern Zone, four are in the Northern Zone, and five are in the Western Zone.
Because the numbers are so large, Public Health is no longer able to provide the cause of cases (i.e., travel related, close contacts, etc.) by the time the release comes out.
For the first time in a while, there are more recoveries reported today (178) than there are new cases. So there’s been a reduction in the number of known active cases — to 1,589 (down from 1,655 yesterday).
Disturbingly, 64 people are now in hospital with the disease, and 10 of those are in ICU.
Here are the daily new case numbers and the seven-day rolling averages (today at 164) for the current outbreak, dating from March 28, the last day Nova Scotia had zero new daily cases:
And here’s the graph of daily new cases and the seven-day rolling average since the start of the second wave (Oct. 1):
Here’s the graph of daily new case numbers from the start of the pandemic in March 2020:
Here is the active caseload for the current outbreak:
Here is the active caseload since the start of the second wave on Oct. 1:
And here is the active caseload from the start of the pandemic in March 2020, showing the primary associations of each of the major outbreaks:
Demographics
Here is how the new cases break down by age cohort*:
• 25 aged 19 or younger (11 girls or women, 14 boys or men)
• 44 aged 20-39 (20 women, 24 men)
• 32 aged 40-59 (10 women, 22 men)
• 12 aged 60-79 (6 women, 6 men)
• 1 aged 80 or over (a man)
* as with yesterday, there is a gap in the data, and the total is only 114 because the provincial data have been amended without explanation. My suspicion is that four of yesterday’s cases were reassigned to another province, but Public Health hasn’t told us which four. This means that the breakdown above is off by four, which is unfortunate, but it won’t make a noticeable difference in the graph below.
This graph shows the percentage of daily positive cases by age cohort, since April 17:
The active cases are distributed as follows:
• 429 in the Halifax Peninsula/Chebucto Community Health Network in the Central Zone
• 508 in the Dartmouth/Southeastern Community Health Network in the Central Zone
• 156 in the Bedford/Sackville Community Health Network in the Central Zone
• 43 in the Eastern Shore/Musquodoboit Community Health Network in the Central Zone
• 7 is in the West Hants Community Health Network in the Central Zone
• 110 in the Cape Breton Community Health Network in the Eastern Zone
• 21 in the Inverness, Victoria & Richmond Community Health Network in the Eastern Zone
• 3 in the Antigonish & Guysborough Community Health Network in the Eastern Zone
• 29 in the Colchester/East Hants Community Health Network in the Northern Zone
• 6 in the Pictou Community Health Network in the Northern Zone
• 13 in the Cumberland Community Health Network in the Northern Zone
• 29 in the Annapolis and Kings Community Health Network in the Western Zone
• 22 in the Lunenburg & Queens Community Health Network in the Western Zone
• 4 in the Yarmouth, Shelburne & Digby Community Health Network in the Western Zone
Two-hundred-and-eleven cases are not assigned to a Community Health Network, but they are in the Central Zone.
Testing
Nova Scotia Health labs completed 4,421 PCR tests yesterday. This figure does not include the antigen tests taken at the various pop-up testing sites, or the antigen tests collected at some of the PCR testing centres (see below).
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:
Tuesday
Halifax Central Library, noon-7pm
Halifax Convention Centre, noon-7pm
Canada Games Centre, noon-7pm
Central Spryfield Elementary School, 2-7pm
Alderney Gate Public Library, noon-7pm
John Martin School (Dartmouth), noon-7pm
Bridgewater Cineplex, 2-7pm
Centre 200 (Sydney), 3-7pmWednesday
Halifax Central Library, noon-7pm
Halifax Convention Centre, noon-7pm
Canada Games Centre, noon-7pm
Central Spryfield Elementary School, noon-7pm
Alderney Gate Public Library, noon-7pm
John Martin School (Dartmouth), noon-7pm
Bridgewater Cineplex, 2-7pm
Centre 200 (Sydney), 3-7pmThursday
Halifax Central Library, noon-7pm
Halifax Convention Centre, noon-7pm
Canada Games Centre, noon-7pm
Central Spryfield Elementary School, noon-7pm
Alderney Gate Public Library, noon-7pm
John Martin School (Dartmouth), noon-7pm
Bridgewater Cineplex, 2-7pm
Centre 200 (Sydney), 3-7pmFriday
Canada Games Centre, noon-7pm
Central Spryfield Elementary School, noon-7pm
John Martin School (Dartmouth), noon-7pm
Bridgewater Cineplex, 2-7pm
Centre 200 (Sydney), 3-7pm
You can volunteer to work at the pop-up testing sites here. No medical experience is necessary.
Public Health Mobile Units are available only for pre-booked appointments for PCR tests for people of all ages (results within three days). There are currently no mobile units scheduled.
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 listed below in each of the health zones (appointments may not be available at each site).
Also, asymptomatic testing has been restored at at least some of the PCR testing centres listed below, but as I understand it, some of those locations may be giving asymptomatic people the antigen tests and not the PCR tests.
Central Zone
Bayers Lake (41 Washmill Lake Drive)
Burnside/Dartmouth Crossing (77 Finnian Row)
Canada Games Centre
Dartmouth General Hospital Drive-Thru (No Taxis)
Eastern Shore Memorial Hospital
Mayflower Curling Club
Musquodoboit Valley Memorial Hospital
Saint Mary’s University (Homburg Centre)
Twin Oaks Memorial Hospital (Musquodoboit Harbour)
Zatzman Sportsplex
Northern Zone
Colchester Legion Stadium (14 Lorne Street, Truro)
Truro (625 Abenaki Road, with drive-thru at 600 Abenaki Road)
Truro Farmers Market Drive-Thru testing
Amherst (34 Prince Arthur Street)
Pictou County Assessment Center (678 East River Rd, New Glasgow)
Eastern Zone
Antigonish Market Square
Buchanan Memorial Community Health Centre (Neils Harbour)
Eastern Memorial Hospital (Canso)
Grand Lake Road Fire Hall (Sydney)
Inverness Consolidated Memorial Hospital
Membertou Entertainment Centre
Northside General Hospital (North Sydney)
Sacred Heart Community Health Centre (Cheticamp)
Strait Richmond Hospital (Evanston)
Victoria County Memorial Hosptial (Baddeck)
Western Zone
Acadia Festival Theatre
Acadia University Club
Berwick Firehall
Digby Station (7 Birch Street)
Liverpool PAC (157 School Street)
Roseway Hospital (Shelburne)
South Shore Assessment Centre (215 Dominion Road, Bridgewater)
Yarmouth Mariners Centre
Yarmouth Visitor Information Centre (228 Main Street)
Vaccination
Yesterday, 8,814 doses of vaccine were administered. In total, 374,903 doses have been administered, and of those, 37,784 were second doses; 34.7% of the population has received at least one dose of vaccine.
This morning, the province opened up booking for Pfizer and Moderna vaccines for people 40 years old and over. People who are from 40 to 54 can book an appointment for the AstraZeneca. You can book an appointment here.
Schools
The current status of schools:
All schools in the province are closed through May 31.
Potential exposure advisories
Last night, Public Health issued a list of potential COVID exposure advisories, which were mostly new bus routes and flights (the release also contained a couple of corrections from previous releases; I’ve updated the potential exposure map to reflect those corrections).
I’ve collected all the active advisories for potential COVID exposures on bus routes and flights here.
The updated potential COVID exposure advisory map is below; you can click on the icons to get information about each site. Note: in HRM, potential exposure sites that are considered low-risk for transmission are no longer subject to advisories; that’s because everyone in HRM is encouraged to get tested, whether they were at a potential exposure site or not.
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