A user equipment (UE) monitors a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH). The UE receives a configuration for a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) including repetitions for PDCCH candidates comprising first PDCCH data, wherein the PDCCH candidates are repeated across multiple durations of a DL resource grid, detects, based on a repetition detection scheme, each of the PDCCH candidates and combines soft bits from each of the PDCCH candidates, wherein the combined soft bits are jointly decoded to determine the first PDCCH data and calculates a number of blind decodes (BDs) for the durations of the DL resource grid carrying the PDCCH candidates, wherein at least one BD value for the PDCCH candidates is scaled by a scaling factor for the calculation of the number of BDs.