1 new death, 14 deaths from previous reporting periods announced in N.S. COVID-19 weekly update

Nova Scotia has reported one new COVID-19 deathwithin the latest reporting week from Nov. 22 to Nov. 28.

But the province also recorded14more deaths from a previous,unspecified time period, according to information released Thursday.

Those deathswere listed ina new categoryadded toNova Scotia's COVID-19 dashboardon Nov. 3.

The province said deaths reported in this category could be from any past reporting period, but mostlikely to be within weeks or months of being reported.

Since March 2020, Nova Scotia has reported657 COVID-19 deaths.

The provincereported 544new cases confirmed by PCR tests for that same time period a daily average of about 78. This is up from last week, whenthere were515PCR-confirmed cases.

Nova Scotia Healthreported 249people in hospital with COVID-19 on Thursday.That is upfrom223the previous week.

Of those 249 people:

• 38 were in hospital for COVID-19 (including six people in ICU).
• 135were in hospital for something else but have COVID-19.
• 76 patients contracted COVID-19 after admission.

The IWKHealth Centre reported fewer than five hospitalizations on Thursday.

Health-care staff off work

Nova Scotia Health said there were129 employees off work Thursday due to being diagnosed with COVID-19, awaiting test resultsor being exposed to a member of their household who tested positive.

The IWK reported 23 employees off work due to COVID-19 on Thursday.