Covid Scotland: 6,029 new cases and seven deaths reported in last 24 hours

In the last 24 hours Scotland has reported another 6,029 positive coronavirus cases according to the latest Scottish Government figures.

In total 45,512 new tests were carried out and of these, 14.9 per cent were positive.

Today’s figure may be artificially high as the data includes a larger than usual proportion of specimens that were processed more than 48 hours ago.

Seven additional deaths were recorded today which brings the total death toll since the start of the pandemic to 8,118.

Yesterday, 585 people were in hospital with recently confirmed Covid-19 and 54 people were in intensive care.

To date 4,106,408 have received their first dose of the coronavirus vaccination, while 3,680,761 have received their second dose.

On Friday last week Scotland broke the record for the number of new positive cases in a 24 hours period, with 6,835 people testing positive for the virus.

Here are the latest coronavirus figures in Scotland.

This was broken again on Sunday when 7,113 tests reported positive results, however, it is understood that the figure – much like today’s – may be artificially high as a larger proportion than usual of the specimens were processed more than 48 hours before due to backlogs and delays in the testing system.

Despite the rising case numbers, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said last week that a “circuit breaking” was not currently being considered.

She urged businesses and individuals to continue complying with basic mitigations such as wearing face coverings and regularly washing hands.

Yesterday NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde issued an appeal asking for Scots only to visit A&E in “life-threatening” situations due to a “very significant demand on health services including Emergency Departments”.

It said services were seeing an increased number of patients with “a broad range of conditions” which was adding to the pressure.

The statement read: “This means our clinical staff are extremely busy caring for those additional patients as well as those presenting with Covid-19 whilst at the same time maintaining enhanced infection control precautions for all.

“The weekend was particularly busy for our EDs and for that reason we made another appeal for people to consider if their situation really is one which should be dealt with at ED, as opposed to an out of hours GP or a specialist at one of our Minor Injury Units.”

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