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

All deaths were previously unreported, meaning they most likely occurred within last weeks or months.

Since March 2020, there have been 861 deaths related to the virus.

The province also reported 173 new cases confirmed by PCR tests, a slight increase from last week's 151 lab-confirmed cases.

Nova Scotia Health reported 98 people in hospital with COVID-19 on Thursday. This is an increase from the previous reporting period when there were 96 people in hospital with COVID-19.

Of those 98 people:

• 14 were in hospital for COVID-19 (seven of them in ICU).

• 65 were in hospital for something else but have COVID-19.

• 19 patients contracted COVID-19 after admission.

Nova Scotia Health said there were 57 employees off work on Thursday because they were diagnosed with COVID-19, awaiting test results, or exposed to a member of their household who tested positive.

The IWK Health Centre said 14 of its staff were off work because of COVID or isolating due to COVID. There are fewer than five hospitalizations at the IWK.

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