Nova Scotia reports 14 more deaths from COVID-19

Nova Scotia reported 14 new COVID-19 deaths Thursday, but the province says the deaths did not happen within the latest reporting week, which ran from Oct. 25 to Oct. 31.

In an update posted to Nova Scotia's COVID-19 dashboard, the province introduced a new category titled "New Deaths from Previous Reporting Periods." It did not specify when the 14 deaths happened. 

The province noted there are no COVID-19 deaths for the current reporting period. The last time the province reported no deaths was the reporting period from Sept. 27 to Oct. 3, 2022.

The province reported 792 new cases confirmed by PCR tests for that same time period — a daily average of 113. This is down from last week, when there were 919 PCR-confirmed cases.

There were 303 people in hospital with COVID-19, the health authority said Thursday. Last week, it reported 309 patients in hospital with COVID 19. That is down slightly from the previous week.

Of those 303 people:

• 34 were in hospital for COVID-19 (including five people in ICU).
• 165 were in hospital for something else but have COVID-19.
• 104 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 115 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 31 employees off work due to COVID-19 on Thursday.

In an interview with Radio-Canada on Wednesday, Nova Scotia Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Robert Strang said emergency departments have been "full for a number of a weeks."

"We have a system that is very strained and even a moderate kind of winter of respiratory viruses will stretch that system even further," Strang said.

Strang is encouraging people to stay up to date with their COVID-19 vaccines and get a flu shot.

"If you have cold and flu symptoms, stay home until you're feeling better. If you do have to go out when you have symptoms, it's critical that you wear a mask," Strang said. "... Those kind of measures are really important to help protect each other, but also to help minimize any potential impact from respiratory viruses."