Coronavirus weekly death rate continues to fall in Scotland

At least 10,097 people have died in Scotland with confirmed or suspected coronavirus, according to official figures.

On Wednesday, National Records of Scotland revealed there were 19 deaths linked to Covid registered between April 26 to May 2, a fall of four from the previous week.

Of the new NRS figures, the majority were in hospital at 11, with seven in care homes and one at home or in non-institutional settings.

There were eight deaths in the Greater Glasgow and Clyde health board area and three in Lanarkshire. Ayrshire and Arran, Forth Valley and Grampian each registered two.

At council level, the highest number of deaths occurred in Glasgow City and North Lanarkshire, each registering three.

Renfrewshire, South Ayrshire and West Dunbartonshire each registered two deaths.

Of the 32 local authority areas in Scotland, 20 recorded no deaths involving Covid-19.

NRS also reported that 79% of the deaths were of people aged 75 and over, with 11% under 65.

Out of the 19 deaths, 53% were male and 47% were female.

Pete Whitehouse, director of statistical services at NRS, said: “We continue to see a progressive decline in the number of deaths involving Covid-19 since January and while that trend is very welcome, I am mindful that each represents a painful loss for a family in Scotland.

“There were 1035 deaths in total from all causes this week, 5% lower than the five-year average.”

Later on Wednesday, the Scottish Government confirmed that a further 85 new cases of coronavirus were reported in Scotland overnight.

However, it was highlighted that Public Health Scotland has been made aware of data flow issues from UK Government testing sites since Tuesday afternoon which may have affected the number of cases reported.

No further deaths were reported.

Of the new cases reported on Wednesday, 25 are in the Greater Glasgow and Clyde region, 18 are in Grampian and 11 are in Lothian.

The rest of the cases are spread out across five other health board areas.

According to NHS boards across Scotland, 69 people are currently in hospital with confirmed or suspected Covid-19. Out of those, 13 patients are in intensive care.

The Scottish Government also confirmed that 2,846,834 Scots have received their first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, an increase of 13,073 from the day before.

A total of 1,373,882 people have received their second dose, a rise of 25,832.