Nova Scotia reports no COVID-19 deaths in latest update

Nova Scotia reported zero COVID-19 deaths in its weekly update on Thursday.

It marked the first time with no deaths since the province introduced the "previously unreported deaths" category on its COVID-19 tracking website last November.

Since March 2020, there have been 832 deaths related to the virus.

The province also reported 241 new cases confirmed by PCR tests with a daily average of 34. This is down from the previous week when there were 252 lab-confirmed cases.

Nova Scotia Health reported 129 people in hospital with COVID-19 on Thursday. This is an increase from the previous reporting period when there were 121 people in hospital with COVID-19.

Of those 129 people:

• 12 were in hospital for COVID-19 (including one person in ICU).
• 74 were in hospital for something else but have COVID-19.
• 43 patients contracted COVID-19 after admission.

The IWK Health Centre said 23 of its staff were off work because of COVID or isolating from COVID. Hospitalizations at the IWK are below five.

Nova Scotia Health said there were 82 employees off work Wednesday due to being diagnosed with COVID-19, awaiting test results or being exposed to a member of their household who tested positive.