Scotland has recorded its highest daily Covid-19 deaths since the peak of the pandemic in early May after 64 fatalities involving people with positive cases were recorded in the last 24 hours.
National Records of Scotland, the government statistics agency, said 206 deaths were recorded last week where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate, an increase of 38 over the previous week. Of those, 143 people died in hospital and 53 in care homes.
NRS said that adjusting for age, the data showed people living in large urban areas were four times more likely to die of the virus compared with those in rural areas, while West Dunbartonshire had the highest age-standardised death rate of all council areas, followed by Glasgow City, Midlothian and Inverclyde.
Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister, said at her daily briefing the number of positive cases rose by 1,261 in the last 24 hours but she said the rate of increase was clearly slowing, as a result of the multi-tier controls imposed across the country. She said that had those controls not been in place, Scotland would now be seeing about 3,000 new cases every day.
