Another person has died of COVID-19 in Nova Scotia. In its daily report, the province identifies her as a woman who was over 80, and she died in the Central health authority zone. She is the 67th declared COVID fatality in the province, and the second C19 death in 2021 (the first was announced March 18).
There are six new infections today. "Three cases are in Central Zone," the province says. "One is a close contact of a previously reported case and the other two are related to travel outside Atlantic Canada." The other three cases are divided between the Eastern health zone, with two, and the Western zone; all are connected to travel beyond Atlantic Canada. Nova Scotia now has 42 active cases.
In an echo of yesterday's case report that involved infected Nova Scotians who aren't currently living in Nova Scotia, the province is reporting its 45th known case of the B117 strain. "This case was previously reported and is included in the provincial data, though the person is not in Nova Scotia and has no known close contacts in the province," the provincial update says. Canada's public health system tracks cases by where the infected person is a permanent resident, which isn't necessarily where they are living with the disease.
Speaking of tracking systems, some Nova Scotian cases were shuffled from one health zone to another in the province's records. The Northern zone's case total increased by one, even though it has no new cases, and Central zone went down one (before adding back in today's infections). This is a routine accounting clarification that happened Tuesday, too, and the latest numbers are reflected in the map at the top of the page.
Yesterday in testing and vaccinations, provincial labs completed 2,032 tests—down slightly from the current daily average of 2,200 tests—and local clinics gave 11,925 vaccine jabs. Getting nearly 12,000 people vaccinated in one day is astronomical for Nova Scotia, where the record before this week was just over 8,500 shots in a day. But it's actually down from yesterday's mark of over 13,000 vaccinations, which is the current record.
Today there are three people with C19 in Nova Scotian hospitals, down from four people yesterday. Usually it's good news when someone recovers enough to get out of the hospital, but there's a chance that number went down because one of those patients was the woman who died, and that's the worst news.
Last and least-surprising, Nova Scotia's official state of emergency has been renewed for another two weeks. It has been extended every fortnight since the SOE was declared on March 22, 2020, creating an emergency that's lasted more than a year.
Where Nova Scotia’s COVID-19 cases are on Friday, April 16
| HEALTH ZONE & NETWORK | NEW CASES | CLOSED CASES | ACTIVE CASES |
|---|---|---|---|
| Western zone totals | 1 new | 0 closed | 8 active |
| Yarmouth | - | - | - |
| Lunenburg | - | - | 1 |
| Wolfville | 1 | - | 7 |
| Central zone totals | 3 new | 5 closed | 24 active |
| West Hants | - | - | - |
| Halifax | 2 | 4 | 14 |
| Dartmouth | 1 | - | 5 |
| Bedford | - | - | 4 |
| Eastern Shore | - | - | - |
| Northern zone totals | 0 new | 0 closed | 2 active |
| Truro | - | - | 1 |
| Amherst | - | - | - |
| Pictou | - | - | 1 |
| Eastern zone totals | 2 new | 1 closed | 8 active |
| Antigonish | - | - | - |
| Inverness | 1 | - | 1 |
| Sydney | 1 | 1 | 7 |
TABLE NOTES The totals for the health zones (Northern, Eastern, Western, Central) may be different than the totals you'd get by adding up the numbers in the Community Health Networks that make up each zone, because the province doesn't track all cases at the community network level. The zone totals reflect every case in the area; the community network numbers only show cases that can be localized to a region inside the bigger area. The names of the community networks here have been adapted/shortened for simplicity (click to download the province's PDF map with the exhaustively complete network names). All data comes from the Nova Scotia COVID-19 data page. We use a dash (-) instead of a zero (0) where applicable in the health network numbers to make the table easier to read.
