Today in the #AtlanticBubble

There were 14 new cases in the region today: 1 in Nova Scotia, 2 in New Brunswick, and 11 in Newfoundland and Labrador.

There are now 220, known, active cases in the region; 79 fewer than a week ago.

PEI didn't update today, so there are still 3 known, active cases in the province.

NFLD reported 11 new cases today, the largest one-day total since April.

The first case of unknown origin in the St. John's area was announced ~2 weeks ago, and over that time the cluster has grown to ~6 people.

The cases are linked to one another, but the origin is unknown.

Today, 11 cases were reported in the same area, forming 3 unlinked clusters.

That sucks

But *finding* the cases doesn't suck. If you look at any of the recent outbreaks in the Atlantic region, they always start with a sharp jump in cases.

That's because our starting point is ~0 untraced cases. So going to 11 can be pretty shocking, and makes it seem like things are spiraling out of control.

But they almost certainly aren't.

The first step of resolving an outbreak is testing and finding the cluster(s).

So for the last couple of weeks there's been more testing in the Eastern region to try to find the origin of the untraced cluster.

Today was a big step forward in identifying the size and scope of the problem, which needs to happen before it can be addressed.

In the coming days, there may be more 'big' case days. But that doesn't mean things are spiraling out of control, it just means that testing is catching up with the cases that already existed, and getting those people isolated to prevent more.

*Having* cases is bad, but *finding* cases is not. Today was more about the latter than the former.

NFLD will be OK; they've proven to be quite good at this stuff so far, and I doubt this time will be any different.

Back to basics: keep your distance, wear a mask, get tested.

There are now 27 known, active cases in NFLD.

NB reported just 2 new cases today, both in the Edmundston region.

Just. Two. Cases.

There are now 182 known, active cases in NB.

At midnight tonight, Edmundston will exit the Lockdown restrictions and enter Red level restrictions.

Moncton will exit Red and join the rest of the province in Orange level restrictions.

I'm sure I speak for everyone in the region when I say: WELL DONE, NB!

NS reported 1 new travel-related case in the Halifax area today.

There are now 8 known, active cases in NS.

Here is the full pandemic timeline for the Atlantic region. Each tick is a week since March.

Check out the improvements in NB recently.

You can compare each of the provinces'/territories' vaccine roll-outs with this animation.

The top/solid line is doses distributed, bottom/dashed is doses administered, and the shaded area is doses in storage. All population adjusted.

Here are the usual vaccine roll-out metrics:

1st is usage rate for doses distributed in the last 3 weeks.

2nd is how many days since the national vaccination rate was where each province is now (i.e., how many days behind the rest of the country they are).

Over the weekend, I played around with trying to estimate how many days of vaccine doses each province has in reserve based on how quickly they've using doses recently.

Some issues with slowing down due to not having many doses, needing to smooth the data, etc.

Not sure how meaningful it is, but thought I would share.

That's it for tonight.

Enjoy the rest of your evening!