Four people recovered since yesterday's report, so the number of active cases rises by five to 68 active cases. The last time we had so many active cases was December 9, more than four months ago, when the total was 71. For the fourth straight day, there are only two people in hospital with C19.
The province continues to advise that people are "strongly encouraged to seek asymptomatic COVID-19 testing," and the recent surge in case numbers may be driving that message home. Today's report says 2,723 local tests were completed by local labs yesterday, a steep rise from the current daily average of about 2,300 tests,
In vaccinations, the province's reporting today shows there were 8,455 doses delivered yesterday. This is up about 1,000 injections from last Monday, but well off the five-figure pace the province managed to reach on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday last week, with over 12,000, jobs per day.
The province is also reporting that two more cases of the B117 variant have been identified from our recent positive tests. "These were previously reported cases that were related to travel," the province says. If you're counting, that brings Nova Scotia to a total of 65 known cases of B117, the UK variant, 12 of 501V2 and one P1, the South African and Brazilian mutations respectively. If you're not counting, all you need to know is that to B117 variant is definitely in Nova Scotia and actively infecting people.
At today's regularly scheduled Strankin C19 briefing, premier Iain Rankin and chief medical officer of health Robert Strang announced new tighter border restrictions for Nova Scotia that come into effect Thursday, April 22 at 8am. The basic idea is that because travellers have been driving so much of the current COVID surge, nobody from outside Atlantic Canada is welcome into the province without a really good reason. Click for the full Coast story.
After today's official numbers came out, the province issued two separate press releases about three C19 cases in Dartmough schools. Two of those cases are at Dartmouth South Academy elementary and Auburn Drive high school; the other is at Mount Edward elementary. All the schools will be closed until at least Monday, April 26 for cleaning. These cases are not yet included on the province's official data page, or on our map or the following table of where cases are located—they will be counted tomorrow.
Where Nova Scotia’s COVID-19 cases are on Tuesday, April 20
| HEALTH ZONE & NETWORK | NEW CASES | CLOSED CASES | ACTIVE CASES |
|---|---|---|---|
| Western zone totals | 2 new | 0 closed | 10 active |
| Yarmouth | - | - | - |
| Lunenburg | 2 | - | 5 |
| Wolfville | - | - | 5 |
| Central zone totals | 6 new | 3 closed | 37 active |
| West Hants | - | - | 1 |
| Halifax | - | 1 | 14 |
| Dartmouth | 2 | 1 | 11 |
| Bedford | 1 | 1 | 7 |
| Eastern Shore | - | - | - |
| Northern zone totals | 0 new | 0 closed | 0 active |
| Truro | - | - | - |
| Amherst | - | - | - |
| Pictou | - | - | - |
| Eastern zone totals | 1 new | 1 closed | 21 active |
| Antigonish | - | - | 1 |
| Inverness | - | - | 2 |
| Sydney | 1 | 1 | 18 |
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.
