Small update here and might be relevant to @acfnews, the python2 version of nginx_status works fine.
<<<nginx_status>>>
127.0.0.1 80 Active connections: 1
127.0.0.1 80 server accepts handled requests
127.0.0.1 80 149 149 146
127.0.0.1 80 Reading: 0 Writing: 1 Waiting: 0