N.L. reports 35 COVID-19 hospitalizations over final 2 weeks of 2022

Thirty-five people were admitted to hospital as a result of COVID-19 in Newfoundland and Labrador in the final two weeks of 2022, according to the provincial government's data hub.

Officials at the Department of Health are changing the way they report COVID-19 data in the province beginning Wednesday. A statement from the department in December said case numbers have remained steady enough that reporting every two weeks is sufficient.

Five of the 35 hospitalizations from Dec. 18 to Dec. 31involved critical care, the data hub says, but it's unclear whether 'new hospitalizations' represents the number of people currently in hospital or the total number of hospitalizations from the two-week time period. CBC News has contacted the department for clarification.

A total of four people died as a result of COVID-19 over the two-week period, bringing the total number of deaths in the province to 295 since March 2020.

One person aged 80 or older, two people in their 70s and one person in their 60s died.Two of the deaths were reported in the Eastern Health and two deaths were reported in the Central Health region.

Year-end statistics show Newfoundland and Labrador recorded 276 deaths as a result of COVID-19 in 2022 or 94 per cent of the province's total COVID-19 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic.

The HealthDepartment also reported 145 confirmed COVID-19 cases from Dec. 18 to Dec. 31, but that number doesn't represent the entirety of cases since it records only positive PCR tests done by provincial health authorities, and doesn't include rapid tests done by the public on their own.

Officials also added a new statistic to the data hub Wednesday, the up-to-date vaccination percentage of Newfoundland and Labrador. "Up to date" is defined as the percentage of the total population who received, within the last six months,either their first two COVID-19 vaccine doses or a COVID-19 booster shot.

Residents between 70 and 79 lead the category at 57.2 per cent vaccination rate, while children between the ages of six months and four years are the lowest group at 5.3 per cent.

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