Scotland records three Covid deaths and 2836 new cases

Scotland has recorded three coronavirus deaths and 2836 new cases in the past 24 hours, the Scottish Government has said.

It means the death toll under this daily measure – of people who first tested positive for the virus within the previous 28 days – stands at 7711.

Public Health Scotland is continuing to investigate a potential delay in lab processing samples, saying on Friday that numbers are expected to be missing around 1000 cases.

Officials are still probing the processing of specimens in the Lighthouse labs – at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow – which has resulted in a lower than expected number of positive cases being reported.

The laboratory is continuing to issue results as tests are processed whilst investigating and resolving the cause of the delay.

A total of 33,569 tests reported results in the past 24 hours, according to figures published by the Scottish Government on Saturday.

The daily test positivity rate was 8.9%, up from 6.9% the previous day.

The total number of people to have tested positive for the virus in Scotland is now 268,293.

There were 197 people in hospital on Friday with recently confirmed Covid-19 – up nine in 24 hours – and 18 people in intensive care, up two.

So far, 3,730,101 people have received the first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine and 2,666,827 have had their second.