Nova Scotia reports 1 COVID-19 death Tuesday, 95 in designated hospital units

Nova Scotia reported onedeath related to COVID-19 onTuesday.

The death was a man in his 80s in the central zone.

A news release from the province said there were 95people receiving care in designated COVID-19 units in hospital, including 13in intensive care.

The province said there were 13admissions and fourdischarges.The age range of those in hospital is oneto 97and the average age is 68. The average length of stay is 7.7days.

The vaccination status of those in hospital is:

• Twenty-three (24.2 per cent) people have had a third dose of COVID-19 vaccine.
• Fifty (52.6 per cent) are fully vaccinated (two doses).
• Zeroare partially vaccinated.
• Twenty-two (23.2 per cent) are unvaccinated.

Nova Scotia's health authority did 2,621tests Monday and found274new cases of the virus. The central zone has 103new cases, the eastern zone has 76, the northern zone has 50and the western zone has 45.

The province saidthere are about 3,630 active cases of COVID-19 in Nova Scotia.

About nineper cent of Nova Scotians are not vaccinated againstCOVID-19.

Currently, unvaccinated Nova Scotiansare about 3.5 times more likely to be hospitalized due to COVID-19 than someone with two doses of vaccine. That is based on average hospitalizations since the province started releasing the daily hospitalization numbers by vaccine status on Jan. 4.

About seven per cent of Nova Scotians, or roughly 72,000 people, are eligible to get the vaccine but haven't yet. Nova Scotia Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Robert Stranghassaid this group is being "disproportionately impacted by Omicron," representing 30 per cent of COVID-19 deaths since Dec. 8, and 21 per cent of hospitalizations.

Student absences remains high

Last week marked the second week of in-person learning for public schools across the province, and student absencesremained abnormally high.

For the first week back, about twice as many students were absent, on average, relative to similar periods in past years. That trend continued into the week of Jan. 24, with an absence rate of about 14.8 per cent, compared to the typical rate of about 7.5 per cent.

CBC News calculated those figures based on data shared by seven of the eight school districts. Cape Breton-Victoria Regional Centre for Education was excluded because it did not provide baseline attendance data.

Some regions did not include attendance for high schools because it was exam week and attendance was not recorded consistently.

Families are not obligated to give the reason for calling in an absence, so it's impossible to know how many absences were due to illness (related to COVID-19 or otherwise) or for any other reason.

Atlantic Canada case numbers

• Prince Edward Islandreported one death and 15peoplein hospital Tuesday, with two in ICU.
• New Brunswickreported fivedeaths and162 hospitalizations Tuesday, including 17inICU withseven people on ventilators.
• Newfoundland and Labradorreported 25 people in hospital Tuesday, including 11 in the ICU.

MORE TOP STORIES