N.L. reports 3 more COVID-19-related deaths, pushing provincial total to 34

Newfoundland and Labrador is reporting three more deaths due to COVID-19, the most in a single day since the pandemic hit the province.

Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Janice Fitzgerald said at a provincial briefing Wednesday that all three deaths were people in the Central Health region.

Thirty-four people the province have now died of COVID-19 since March 2020 — 15 in the last month.

The province also reported 304 new cases and 308 recoveries, dropping the known active caseload to 2,680. Twenty people are in hospital due to COVID-19, unchanged from Tuesday's update.

Since Tuesday, 2,017 tests have been completed, with a positivity rate of 15.1 per cent. More than 474,000 tests have been completed over the course of the pandemic, said Fitzgerald.

Despite the high numbers, Fitzgerald says the province is in Alert Level 4, rather than the stricter Level 5, to try to balance public health goals with societal effects.

"Our goals are to minimize the impact on society, while also minimize severe disease and deaths and keeping hospitalizations at a level that our health system can manage. Our vaccination rate is helping … but we still have work to do," she said.

"All that work we put in has prepared us to see this through."

Fitzgerald also addressed the contact tracing system in schools, in which parents are not obligated to notify the school if the child tests positive.

While she said understands why parents might be concerned, but said the goal is to try to prevent students from being caught in repeated isolation cycles that would keep them out of the classroom, or have an effect on their — or their family's — mental health.

If their child develops symptoms, parents are asked to use their supply of rapid COVID-19 tests.

The province is also changing testing requirements for those who have previously tested positive and face a second exposure. If a person has tested positive for COVID-19 on or before Dec. 21, 2021 and becomes a close contact of another case within 90 days, they do not need to be tested or isolate.

Meanwhile, Education Minister Tom Osborne and Newfoundland and Labrador English School District CEO Tony Stack — both present at the briefing — announced the expansion of online learning resources for junior and senior high school students.

The province is adding educators to help develop resources for its Centre for Distance Learning and Innovation Program, commonly known as CDLI, including six people who will create additional online learning resources to support math and reading in junior high.