Nova Scotia is reporting two new cases of COVID-19 and five new recoveries on Friday.
“I’m pleased to see that we have another day with low case numbers,” said Premier Iain Rankin in a news release.
“While the case numbers are promising, please don’t become complacent. Follow the public health measures, get tested and get vaccinated if you haven’t already.”
One of the new cases is in the Central Zone and is under investigation. The other is in the Eastern Zone and is a close contact of a previously reported case.
There is limited community spread in the Central Zone, the release said, and the other health zones continue to be monitored for community spread.
Nova Scotia Health labs completed 2,936 PCR tests on Thursday. There were also 7,007 rapid tests administered between June 25 and July 1 at pop-up sites in Halifax, Hammonds Plains, Sackville, Dartmouth, Big Tancook Island and Sydney.
There are now 47 active cases of COVID-19 in Nova Scotia, including three people in hospital.
Nearly 1 million vaccine doses
Within the next few days, Nova Scotia is expected to reach one million vaccine doses administered.
Premier Rankin is scheduled to mark the upcoming milestone at the IWK Health Centre’s vaccination clinic on Monday morning.
As of Thursday, 961,653 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been given out, including 253,331 second doses.
There have been 4,151 cases of COVID-19 between March 15 to June 30. Of those, 0.6 per cent were fully vaccinated and 5.4 per cent were partially vaccinated.
Of the 252 people hospitalized during that time, 0.8 per cent were fully vaccinated and 10.7 per cent were partially vaccinated.
And out of the 26 people that died, one person was fully vaccinated and three were partially vaccinated.
“The majority of our cases are among people who have not yet received the vaccine or who got COVID-19 before the vaccine had taken effect,” said Dr. Robert Strang, Nova Scotia’s chief medical officer of health, in the release.
“This is an important reminder of the role vaccines play in our reopening plan. Ensuring everyone has access to the vaccine and gets both doses will help limit the spread of the virus, which will allow us to further ease restrictions in the future.”
International travel
In a separate release Friday, the province said it will follow federal requirements for international travellers effective Monday, July 5.
As of that day, the federal government is lifting some quarantine requirements for international travellers who are approved for entry if they are fully vaccinated at least 14 days before arriving in Canada.
It will apply only to people already eligible to travel to Canada, including citizens, permanent residents and people registered under the Indian Act.
“It makes sense to align our border policy with the federal government’s for international travel,” said Premier Rankin in the release.
“The federal rules are the same as Nova Scotia’s for fully vaccinated travellers and more stringent for others. This is another positive step in our province’s cautious reopening strategy.”
Fully vaccinated travellers arriving by air will not be required to stay at a government-authorized hotel, but they must still meet other mandatory federal requirements, including pre- and on-arrival testing.
The government is also encouraging travellers to get tested while they’re in the province.
All international travellers entering Nova Scotia must complete the Nova Scotia Safe Check-in form, the release said.
For those international travellers who don’t apply to the new rule change, the rules remain the same. They must quarantine at their point of entry until they get a negative test result, then they can enter Nova Scotia and complete the rest of their 14-day quarantine.
A second negative test is required to end their quarantine.
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