Nova Scotia has reached a solemn milestone, surpassing 1,000 COVID-19 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic.

“A thousand people in a province of a million people is a lot of humans and families that are missing people,” said Dr. Lisa Barrett, an infectious diseases doctor and researcher at Dalhousie University in Halifax.

Data released in the latest weekly respiratory watch report shows an additional nine deaths for the week of Dec. 10-16, bringing the total to 1,004 in the province.