Nova Scotia reports total of 12 COVID-19 deaths in latest update

Nova Scotia has reported a total of 12 COVID-19 deaths on Thursday, all of whichare from previous reporting periods, meaning theymost likely occurred within the last weeks or months.

There were no new deaths forlatest reporting period of Jan. 17 to Jan. 23.

Since March 2020, there have been 718 deaths related to the virus.

The province also reported 687 new cases confirmed by PCR tests, a daily average of 98 cases. This is upfrom the previous reporting period,when there were 599 new cases confirmed by PCR tests.

Nova Scotia Healthreported 242 people in hospital with COVID-19 on Thursday. This is a decrease from the previous reporting period when there were258 people in hospital with COVID-19.

Of those 242 people:

• 36 were in hospital for COVID-19 (including fivepeoplein ICU).
• 105 were in hospital for something else but have COVID-19.
• 101 patients contracted COVID-19 after admission.

The IWKHealth Centre reported fewer than five hospitalizations on Thursday.

Nova Scotia Health said there were 157 employees off work Thursday due tobeing diagnosed with COVID-19, awaiting test resultsor being exposed to a member of their household who tested positive.

The IWK reported 45employees off work due to COVID-19 or isolation requirementson Thursday.