Nova Scotia reports total of 5 COVID-19 deaths in latest update

Nova Scotia has reported a total of five COVID-19 deaths on Thursday, all of which are from previous reporting periods, meaning they most likely occurred within the last weeks or months.

There were no new deaths for latest reporting period of Jan. 11 to Jan. 16.

Since March 2020, there have been 706 deaths related to the virus.

The province also reported 599 new cases confirmed by PCR tests, a daily average of 86 cases. This is down from the previous reporting period, when there were 1,038 new cases confirmed by PCR tests.

Nova Scotia Health reported 258 people in hospital with COVID-19 on Thursday. This is a decrease from the previous reporting period when there were 283 people in hospital with COVID-19.

Of those 258 people:

• 40 were in hospital for COVID-19 (including nine people in ICU).
• 95 were in hospital for something else but have COVID-19.
• 123 patients contracted COVID-19 after admission.

The IWK Health Centre reported fewer than five hospitalizations on Thursday.

Nova Scotia Health said there were 159 employees off work Thursday due to being diagnosed with COVID-19, awaiting test results or being exposed to a member of their household who tested positive.

The IWK reported 46 employees off work due to COVID-19 or isolation requirements on Thursday.

On Thursday, Nova Scotia Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Robert Strang said COVID-19 cases "seem to be stabilizing."

"We still encourage people to get their bivalent COVID booster. Focus on all the other messages around, masking where appropriate, staying home if sick. We'll continue to monitor the evolution of COVID variants as they occur," he said.

"But I think the basic message for the Nova Scotia public is COVID is still here, but we're in ... a pretty good place. But we still have to focus on all those key prevention steps."