Nova Scotia is announcing 70 new infections today. It's a number that would have seemed huge at the beginning of April, but that's actually down from the 75 yesterday and the current pandemic maximum of 96 new cases reported Tuesday, the day before.
Eleven people recovered from their COVID-19 infections since yesterday, compared to those 70 new cases, so the current caseload rises by 59 to 548 active cases. And three more COVID patients have been admitted to hospital, with one more person going into intensive care, since yesterday; there are now 14 people in hospital and 4 in the ICU because of C19 infections.
But Thursday's report also includes a good rising number. Yesterday, vaccination clinics around Nova Scotia delivered 10,424 doses, which is far below the daily record of over 16,500 set one week ago (that's not the good part), but is enough to push the province past 300,000 vaccine doses injected from the start of the vax rollout in December (the total is 304,187 to be exactly).
On Tuesday, public health supremo Robert Strang succinctly explained the province's third wave outbreak: "We are in a race between the variant and the vaccine." Right now that race features high-but-falling infections versus injections that are rising with room to go faster. The humans aren't winning yet—being in the second day of the province-wide lockdown feels more like losing—but the gap might be starting to close.
Like yesterday, the province isn't reporting new testing numbers today, because there are "technical difficulties." The testing is still happening, however, and you're encouraged to use it. Make that strongly encouraged. "Nova Scotians are strongly encouraged to seek asymptomatic COVID-19 testing, particularly if they have a large number of close contacts due to their work or social activities," the province says in the C19 update. "Appointments can be booked at https://covid-self-assessment.novascotia.ca/, by choosing the asymptomatic option. Rapid testing pop-up sites continue to be set up around the province as well."
The update also says what Health Authority zones the new case are in: "Fifty-nine cases are in Central Zone, nine cases are in Eastern Zone, and two cases are in Northern Zone." Western zone gets a day off, its first since last Saturday. For our table showing more detailed locations of the new cases, the recoveries and the active cases, just keep scrolling.
Where Nova Scotia’s COVID-19 cases are on Thursday, April 29
| HEALTH ZONE & NETWORK | NEW CASES | CLOSED CASES | ACTIVE CASES |
|---|---|---|---|
| Western zone totals | 0 new | 0 closed | 15 active |
| Yarmouth | - | - | 4 |
| Lunenburg | - | - | 4 |
| Wolfville | - | - | 7 |
| Central zone totals | 59 new | 8 closed | 470 active |
| West Hants | 1 | - | 4 |
| Halifax | 22 | 2 | 161 |
| Dartmouth | 25 | 5 | 216 |
| Bedford | 4 | 1 | 33 |
| Eastern Shore | 1 | - | 10 |
| Northern zone totals | 2 new | 0 closed | 16 active |
| Truro | 1 | - | 8 |
| Amherst | - | - | - |
| Pictou | 1 | - | 8 |
| Eastern zone totals | 9 new | 3 closed | 47 active |
| Antigonish | - | - | 1 |
| Inverness | 3 | - | 5 |
| Sydney | 6 | 3 | 41 |
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. The zone totals reflect every case in the area, while the community network numbers only show cases that can be localized with the patient's postal code to a region inside the bigger area. Because case information may be updated by the province after cases are announced, two things that lead to different totals are common: 1. the province never gets the information to track some case(s) at the community network level, usually leading to a higher number of cases in the zone total than the sum of the networks, and 2. a case may appear in the network day(s) after it was announced when a case that didn't have a postal code receives one, usually leading to a lower number of cases in the zone total than the sum of the networks. 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.
