Long a pandemic leader, Nova Scotia is now a COVID-19 hot spot
CBC
Nova Scotia's past success at managing the COVID-19 pandemic is also one of the reasons why its daily case counts have never been worse, say two infectious disease experts.
The province has long been lauded for its handling of the pandemic, but daily case counts from the highly transmissible Omicron and BA.2 variants have been rising since late February. They have accelerated dramatically since the Nova Scotia government lifted most public health restrictions on March 21, including gathering limits and mandatory masking in most public places.
"The fact that it continues to go up and the percentage of people that are positive in that group means that there's really a lot of virus out there," said Dr. Lisa Barrett, an infectious diseases doctor and researcher at Dalhousie University in Halifax.
Last Thursday, the most recent COVID-19 weekly reporting date, the province announced an average of almost 1,000 new daily cases, an all-time high since the pandemic began.
Barrett said the lack of mandatory masking rules in most settings combined with a large swath of the population without a previous COVID-19 infection has made Nova Scotia especially vulnerable.
"All those people who hadn't really been exposed before are getting infected, pretty much all at once, which was really what we wanted to avoid," said Barrett.
As well, despite high two-dose vaccination rates in Nova Scotia, booster uptake hasn't been as strong, said Barrett. Among Nova Scotians over the age of 18, only 63.9 per cent have had a booster dose, according to the provincial COVID-19 dashboard.
Officials in Nova Scotia have stressed that the emphasis should be on COVID-19 hospitalizations, not case numbers. But experts point out that as infections rise, hospitalizations are sure to follow.
"The problem is that by the time they're going up, it's too late," said Tara Moriarty, an associate professor and infectious diseases researcher at the University of Toronto.
While the official new daily case count for Nova Scotia was around 1,000 as of last Thursday, Moriarty believes it's more in the neighbourhood of 10 times that. She's developed a public spreadsheet that uses modelling to provide a more accurate picture of the COVID-19 situation in Canada.
"Since we've really started testing a lot less, I and others have been trying to develop methods that give us a sense of how many infections are actually occurring on a daily basis and how many hospitalizations, for example, ICU admissions and deaths we might expect from those," said Moriarty.
She said data reporting is poor across the country, so it's difficult for people to accurately assess what the risk levels are of contracting COVID-19.
"It's really quite serious," she said. "And a lot of Atlantic Canada has been far worse off over the last month than most other provinces."
That could extend to North America.
A holiday event that began in 2020 during the pandemic with three floats on pickup trucks has now become one of Kelowna’s big winter events, drawing thousands to the city’s downtown core.
WARNING: This story details allegations of child abuse.
It’s been hard to keep track of how many legal challenges and active court proceedings the United Conservative government has tried to quash or pre-emptively block in the last six weeks, but let’s try to tally:
Margaret Walker, the emcee of a Waterloo vigil commemorating the victims of the Montreal massacre, doesn't feel enough is being done to reflect on the killings and address gender-based violence.
The P.E.I. Humane Society says it is doing far more fundraising than it used to, and rising expenses — including the cost of animal medications — are a big reason why.
Ottawa is staring down a court-ordered deadline to submit a new plan to reform the on-reserve child welfare system, as a group of First Nations leaders and children’s advocates prepare a competing proposal.
An underpass revitalization project that was meant to pay tribute to the people of Parkdale has instead deteriorated into “a garbage dump,” according to nearby residents.
A young man has been charged with criminal negligence causing bodily harm after a fire at a frat party near Western University that injured five sorority sisters, including two seriously, late Tuesday night.
The massive deal to combine one of Hollywood's oldest studios with a streaming giant hasn't even been approved yet, but it's already riling multiple related industries and politicians concerned about monopolies and media concentration.
Mi'kmaq chiefs and a former Nova Scotia justice minister are criticizing the provincial government for directing police to crack down on illegal cannabis, saying the order undermines relations with Indigenous Peoples.
For years, there has been “glaring inequity” in the way the province has allocated the millions of dollars in its county roads budget, according to Department of Transportation Minister Chuck Chiasson.
Six months after passing a law aimed at making it easier for new grocery stores to open, Manitoba's premier says lower grocery bills could be on the horizon.
Timothy Smith was acting in self-defence when he punched Landon Waddell, and shouldn't be found guilty of manslaughter, his lawyer says.