Coronavirus claims lives of another 29 people in Scotland

Another 29 people in Scotland with coronavirus have died, Nicola Sturgeon has confirmed.

It takes the death toll among lab-confirmed Covid-19 cases to 2134, although counting suspected coronavirus deaths, the total is 3490.

For the third day in a row there have been fewer than 100 new confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Scotland, with 61 reported in the last 24 hours.

That takes total confirmed cases of the virus in the country since the outbreak began to 14,655 – although these figures are believed to be a significant underestimate of the true number of infections.

Speaking at the Scottish Government’s daily press briefing on Tuesday, the First Minister said hospital admissions for patients with the virus or with Covid-19 symptoms have increased by 20 to 1447.

But of those, she said there had been a drop of 36 in the number of patients confirmed to have coronavirus.

The number of people with confirmed or suspected Covid-19 being treated in intensive care has fallen by four overnight to 59.

A total of 3408 patients who were hospitalised with coronavirus have been able to go home since the outbreak began, Sturgeon said.

It comes as new economic figures from the Office of National Statistics suggest the number of people claiming unemployment benefit in Scotland has risen by 67%.

The First Minister announced an additional £33m of funding to help people get back to work as the lockdown begins to be eased and the economy reopened.

She said “most” of the funds would go to the Fair Start Scotland scheme, and would “have a particularly focus on helping those most adversely affected”, including young people, disabled and lone parents.

Sturgeon said ministers would try to minimise any coronavirus-related increased in unemployment in Scotland.

She said: “We are determined to do everything we can to protect Scotland’s workforce, to minimise as far as we can the increase in unemployment, and also to ensure that we are ready for a sustainable recovery.

“Today’s action represent a further step in helping us to do that.”