Nova Scotia reports 4 COVID-19 deaths in latest update

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

Since March 2020, there have been 800 deaths related to the virus.

The province also reported 238 new cases confirmed by PCR tests, a daily average of 34 cases. This is down from the previous reporting period,when there were 264new cases confirmed by PCR tests.

Nova Scotia Healthreported 162 people in hospital with COVID-19 on Thursday. This is an increase from the previous reporting period when there were158 people in hospital with COVID-19.

Of those 162 people:

• 14 were in hospital for COVID-19 (including 2peoplein ICU).
• 96 were in hospital for something else but have COVID-19.
• 52 patients contracted COVID-19 after admission.

The IWKHealth Centre reported fewer than five hospitalizations on Thursday.

Nova Scotia Health said there were 79 employees 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.