Nova Scotia reports 27 COVID-19 deaths in latest update

Nova Scotia reported 27 COVID-19 deaths in a weekly update on Thursday, 25 of whichare from previous reporting periods, meaning theymost likely occurred within the last weeks or months.

There were two new deaths for the latest reporting period of Jan. 31 to Feb. 6.

Since March 2020, there have been 753 deaths related to the virus.

The province also reported 649 new cases confirmed by PCR tests, a daily average of 93 cases. This is down slightlyfrom the previous reporting period,when there were 680 new cases confirmed by PCR tests.

Nova Scotia Healthreported 238 people in hospital with COVID-19 on Thursday. This is an increase from the previous reporting period when there were208 people in hospital with COVID-19.

Of those 238 people:

• 30 were in hospital for COVID-19 (including 4peoplein ICU).
• 115 were in hospital for something else but have COVID-19.
• 93 patients contracted COVID-19 after admission.

The IWKHealth Centre reported fewer than five hospitalizations on Thursday.

Nova Scotia Health said there were 124 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 29 employees off work due to COVID-19 or isolation requirementson Thursday.