Today's COVID briefing is scheduled to start at 3pm. Typically, the daily case numbers come out right before, so I'll be live-tweeting them both on this thread.
2 more deaths announced.
The deceased are both men in their 60s, who lived in the Central Zone.
There are additionally 17 new cases of COVID-19 announced in NS
Of the new cases, 12 new cases are in the Central Zone — 8 are close contacts of previously reported cases, 2 are related to travel and 2 are under investigation.
There are 3 cases in the Eastern Zone; all are close contacts of previously reported cases. 1 case is in the Northern Zone and is related to travel. 1 case is in the Western Zone and is under investigation.
The province has confirmed its first case of a rare blood clotting condition known as vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT) — a man in his 40s who received his first dose of the AstraZeneca in early May
The man is recovering.
Otherwise, there are 311 known active cases of the disease in the province. 38 people are in hospital with the disease, 15 of whom are in ICU. 72 people are considered newly recovered.
Rankin: both of the men who died were in hospital
Rankin says there are 11 new cases in the Central Zone. The press release says 12.
Rankin: [defends himself against what he says is criticism of slow reopening]
Rankin: Phase 2 should start on June 16. Phase 3 at around June 30. The Atlantic bubble will be open around June 30.
Rankin: we're working on a "proof of vaccine strategy"
Rankin: right now, rotational workers who have been fully vaccinated have to self-isolate for 14 days. We agree this isn't fair. We'll address this.
Rankin: there will be some quarantine requirements for people who have only 1 dose.
Only 5,283 doses of vaccine were administered yesterday.
Apparently the guy who climbed Everest is a friend of Strang, so no criticism allowed.
Strang: get tested.
Strang: I anticipate we'll be able to move to Phase 2 on June 16.
Strang: we're resuming the use of AstraZeneca for second doses
Strang: people who got either Pfizer or Moderna can get either of those for their second dose. But there won't be much Moderna.
Strang: if you got one dose of AZ, you can get a second dose of either AZ, Pfizer, or Moderna. Up to you.
Strang: but we know now that AZ isn't as effective as Pfizer or Moderna for a second dose. Although, side effects of using Pfizer for the second dose will be greater than for a second dose of AZ.
Strang: [details notification of rescheduling second doses] I'll give specifics in an article.
Strang: "population immunity is coming... but we are not there yet"
Strang: going too fast may bring a fourth wave.
56.7% of the entire population has received at least 1 dose of vaccine: 
Here is the daily new case count and the 7-day rolling average (today 24.6) since March 28, the last day of zero new cases:
Here is the active caseload since March 28:
Just drawing a line under this: 21 people have died from COVID since April 1.
Strang: "there's no lag in our vaccination"
Yesterday, I alerted the province that graph on the dashboard showing percentages of each age cohort who have been vaccinated incorrectly had a 75% line. Today, they've corrected it, to an 85% line: …em-storage.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/b86117ff262248…
Rankin isn't calling it an "Atlantic Bubble" anymore because NB and NL are going beyond that on July 1.
I also asked how it's possible that 100% of 75-79-year-old people got vaccinated, and it was explained that the population is based on the 2019 census, but the number of vaccinated is greater than that.
I challenged Strang on congratulating the dentist who went to climb Everest, who travelled internationally as people in NS are not travelling to see their grandmothers in across the province....
I asked him if it's OK for the rest of us to travel internationally now. Strang said he didn't know the details of the guy's travel [it was in the CBC article]
Here's the CBC article. It says he left NS "end of March": cbc.ca/news/canada/no…
Rankin: it's great kids are going back to school.
Briefing is over. I'll have more in a full article.
2 more deaths, 17 new cases of COVID-19 announced in Nova Scotia. Also: a rich dentist who knows Dr. Strang can travel all the way around the world to climb Mt. Everest, but you can't visit grandma in New Brunswick, because that's the way it goes. halifaxexaminer.ca/featured/2-mor…
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