HALIFAX -- Nova Scotia has tested more than 8,400 people for COVID-19 and only 207 tests have come back positive.

Dr. Robert Strang, Nova Scotia’s chief medical officer of health, says the province has expanded its testing and the focus is no longer just on those who have travelled.

“We are actively looking for signs of community spread of COVID-19. There may be some of that out there, we have one confirmed case where that seems to be the cause, there’s probably others,” said Strang during an interview with CTV News.

“The fact that we are testing more and more Nova Scotians who haven’t travelled, and we’re not picking up significant numbers, is reassuring that we don’t have wide community spread at this point. That’s what we are hoping to minimize and avoid with everybody doing everything that we are asking them to do, which is essentially stay home and stay apart from each other.”

Strang says the province is beginning to get a stronger picture of community spread by testing people who have not travelled and it will continue to conduct more testing.

“We initially started with testing people who had travel history, we’re still focusing on that because 91 per cent of our cases … have either travelled or had direct contact within a, for instance, a household setting with a known case,” said Strang.

“(Now) people who are being screened in by 811, once they are sent to the assessment centre, they are tested regardless of whether they meet the travel criteria.”

Nova Scotia is now testing healthcare workers who develop respiratory symptoms, fever and cough, regardless of whether they’ve travelled, but Strang says the province will never have the capacity to test every Nova Scotian who develops a fever or a cough.

“We are looking at ways to continue to build lab capacity. I think people need to understand, two weeks ago our lab was able to do 200 tests a day, now, the last 24 hours we did 800,” Strang said Thursday. “The day before that was 1,000, and we can stretch the lab, and there are ways that we can go even beyond that 1,000.”

“At some point, we have to live within our lab capacity and make sure that we are testing Nova Scotians who have the highest likelihood of having COVID-19. So we are actively looking at those strategies of how do we get out in the communities more? Testing people where there may be signs of COVID in the community and focusing there, but we can’t override our lab capacity ultimately.”