ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — After going more than four months without anyone dying as a result of COVID-19, Newfoundland and Labrador has had two deaths related to the virus in the last four days.
The latest death — the sixth in the province since the start of the pandemic — was reported Saturday. As was the case with the individual who died with COVID on Wednesday, it was a man in the Eastern Health region over the age of 70.
The Department of Health and Community Services, which revealed the latest death in its Saturday COVID update, says it is sending its condolences to the individual’s family and asks everyone to respect the family’s privacy at this time.
The department says there are four new confirmed cases of COVID-19 since its Friday update, all in the Eastern health region.
One person is between 20 and 39, while the other three are between 40 and 49. Two are men and two are women.
Contact tracing by Public Health officials is underway and anyone considered a close contact has been advised to quarantine.
With 19 new recoveries, the number of active cases in N.L. is 271, with all but four in the Eastern region.
On Friday, while acknowledging the downturn in case numbers, Chief Medical Health Officer Dr. Janice Fitzgerald cited the continued risk for community spread in the metro St. John’s area as the reason the Avalon Peninsula — which comprises most of the Eastern Health region — would remain at Alert Level 5 in the provincial COVID response plan for at least two more weeks while the rest of the province moved to Level 4.
Dr. Fitzgerald has also repeatedly noted the need for older segments of the population to be high on the COVID-19 vaccination priority list. In the same Friday media session in which she announced the news regarding alert levels, Fitzgerald provided details of Phase 2 of the province's vaccination strategy, with people over the age of 70 being the largest segment meeting the Phase 2 criteria.
All the recoveries announce Saturday, save for one in Central, were of people in the Eastern region.
There are no new or outstanding presumptive positive cases.
There are 10 people in hospital. Of these patients, six are in intensive care.
To date, 111,741 people have been tested.
