Another 121 Covid deaths recorded in Scotland in past week

The figure is 25 lower than the previous seven days.

Figures from National Records of Scotland show Covid deaths have decreased in the past week (Peter Byrne/PA) (PA Wire)

Confirmed or suspected coronavirus deaths in Scotland decreased by 25 to 121 in the final week of January, according to the latest figures.

A total of 12,946 deaths have now been registered in Scotland where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate, statistics published by National Records of Scotland (NRS) on Wednesday show.

Of the 121 Covid deaths from January 24 to 30, 15 were people aged under 65, 22 were aged 65 to 74, and 84 were 75 or over.

Fifty-nine were male and 62 were female.

Seventy-five of the deaths were in hospital, 35 were in care homes, 10 were at home or in a non-institutional setting and there was one death in another institution.

There were 16 deaths in Glasgow 13 in Fife and 12 in North Lanarkshire – the three council areas with the highest number of Covid-related fatalities in the last seven days.

Twenty-nine out of the 32 local authority areas had at least one Covid death last week.

(PA Graphics) (PA Graphics)

Pete Whitehouse, director of statistical services at NRS, said: “The number of deaths from all causes registered in Scotland in this week was 1,248, which is 8% fewer than the five-year average.”

The data showed deaths from respiratory causes (65 fewer deaths), circulatory causes (20 fewer), cancer (20 fewer) and from dementia/Alzheimer’s (18 fewer) were below average for this time of year.

It said there were nine excess deaths from other causes, and the number of fatalities where Covid-19 was the underlying cause was 78.

Scotland recorded a further 8,310 positive new cases of Covid-19 in the last 24 hours.

Due to a technical issue, Public Health Scotland (PHS) has been unable to provide figures on daily deaths for Wednesday.

This means the number of people who have died within 28 days of testing positive for the virus currently remains at 10,341.

PHS said the death figures will be updated once they are available.

Meanwhile, there were 1,116 people in hospital on Tuesday with recently confirmed Covid-19, with this total down by 61 on the previous day.

Of those in hospital the latest daily statistics showed 28 were in intensive care, down one from 29 the day before.

The figures, published by the Scottish Government, also showed that 4,417,105 people have received their first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, 4,130,639 have received their second dose, and 3,302,671 have received a third dose or booster.