Nova Scotia reports 16 COVID-19 deaths in latest weekly update

Nova Scotia reported 16 deaths in its latest weekly COVID-19 update for the seven-day period from Oct. 18 to Oct. 24, with a significant increase of people contracting the disease in hospital.

On Thursday, Nova Scotia Health reported 115 patients contracted COVID-19 after admission to hospital. Last week, the health authority reported 48 patients contracted COVID-19 after being admitted.

There were 309 people in hospital with COVID-19, the health authority said Thursday. That is up from 196 patients from the previous week's report.

Of those 309 people:

• 42 were in hospital for COVID-19 (including five people in ICU).
• 152 were in hospital for something else but have COVID-19.
• 115 patients contracted COVID-19 after admission.

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

Health-care staff off work 

Nova Scotia Health said there were 128 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 42 employees off work due to COVID-19 on Thursday.

The province reported 919 new cases confirmed by PCR tests for that same time period — a daily average of 131. This is down from the 1,172 cases reported in last week's COVID-19 update.

Pfizer's bivalent vaccine available

Earlier this week, the province announced Pfizer's bivalent vaccine is now available for people 12 and older.

The province said the bivalent vaccine protects better against Omicron variants.

Moderna's bivalent COVID-19 vaccine is also available to Nova Scotians 18 and older. The Pfizer and Moderna bivalent vaccines are the only bivalent vaccines authorized for use in Canada.