Covid Scotland: Nine additional deaths recorded as positivity rate continues to drop

According to the latest data released by the Scottish Government, in the last 24 hours Scotland recorded 1,179 new coronavirus cases and nine new deaths.

Yesterday First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced that the positivity rate of 5.6 per cent recorded on Monday was the lowest it had been since June 19.

Of the 28,268 tests carried out on Tuesday, 4.8 per cent of those which reported results were positive which means that the figure has dropped yet again.

Due to a change in reporting scheduling, Wednesday’s figures for new cases include a small number of cases which would otherwise have been reported on Tuesday, the Government said.

An “improvement” was also announced in the reporting process for the cumulative daily deaths figure – which measures people who died after first testing positive for the virus within the previous 28 days.

It meant there was a “one-off” increase of 36 in addition to the nine in Wednesday’s figures, bringing the total to 7,911.

On Tuesday 474 people were in hospital with coronavirus, and 63 people were in intensive care.

To date 4,002,903 people have received the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccination and 3,125,690 have received their second dose.

Here are the latest coronavirus figures in Scotland.

The National Records of Scotland (NRS) also published its weekly figures on Wednesday which state that a total of 10,324 deaths where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate have now been registered in Scotland.

Of that total, 56 were registered last week, which was an increase of nine from the previous week.

The latest figures showed deaths from all causes were 11 per cent higher than the five-year average last week at 1,110.

There were eight deaths in the Glasgow council area and seven deaths in each of North Lanarkshire, Edinburgh and Dundee.

Last week’s figures included 43 deaths in hospitals and five in care homes, while eight were at home or in a non-institutional setting.

NRS’s figures include deaths where “suspected” or “probable” Covid-19 appears on the death certificate.

Director of statistical services Pete Whitehouse said: “The latest figures show that last week there were 56 deaths where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate.

“Last week there were more deaths involving Covid in people under 65 than people aged 85 or over, with 15 deaths of people aged between 45 and 64.”

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