Nova Scotia reports 12 COVID-19 deaths in latest update

Nova Scotia reported 12 COVID-19 deaths in a weekly update on Thursday, allof whichare from previous reporting periods, meaning theymost likely occurred within the last weeks or months.

Since March 2020, there have been 819 deaths related to the virus.

The province also reported 394 new cases confirmed by PCR tests, a daily average of 56 cases. This is up from the previous reporting period,when there were 272 new cases confirmed by PCR tests.

Nova Scotia Healthreported 123 people in hospital with COVID-19 on Thursday. This is a decrease from the previous reporting period when there were138 people in hospital with COVID-19.

Of those 123 people:

• 11were in hospital for COVID-19 (including 2peoplein ICU).
• 69 were in hospital for something else but have COVID-19.
• 43 patients contracted COVID-19 after admission.

The IWKHealth Centre reported fewer than five hospitalizations on Thursday.

Nova Scotia Health said there were 80employees off work Wednesday due tobeing diagnosed with COVID-19, awaiting test resultsor being exposed to a member of their household who tested positive.

The IWK reported 16employees off work due to COVID-19 or isolation requirementson Thursday.