ANOTHER 37 people have died in Scotland after contracting Covid-19, Nicola Sturgeon has announced.
Giving an update in the Scottish Parliament, the First Minister said the total number of deaths among those who have recently tested positive for Covid-19 has risen to 2791.
A further 1128 cases were also reported in the past 24 hours. That is 7.1% of total tests and takes the total number of cases to 61,531.
Some 1152 people are in hospital with confirmed coronavirus. That is an increase of 35 from yesterday.
Of those, 86 are in intensive care, one more than yesterday.
Of the new Covid cases, 416 were in Greater Glasgow and Clyde, 266 in Lanarkshire, 121 in Ayrshire and Annan and 117 in Lothian.
The remaining cases were spread across nine other health board areas, with only Shetland reporting no cases.
Sturgeon told MSPs: "These figures show that we are still seeing high numbers of new cases, increasing hospital and ICU admissions, and, sadly, a rising number of deaths.
"These issues are not unique to Scotland, we have of course seen a resurgence in the virus in all parts of the UK, across Europe, and right around the world."
She added: "In Scotland, we acted early with some difficult but necessary measures, and we hope that this will have the effect of slowing the spread and preventing further deterioration in our position.
"And while we can't be certain, and certainly have no grounds for complacency, we do see some encouraging signs that this might be the case."
The First Minister revealed that in the past week up to today, new cases have increased by 4%. Two weeks ago the weekly increase was 40%.
The latest of the R number – the rate of infection – suggests it is still above 1 but may have fallen slightly to 1.3. If R is one or higher, the virus will spread exponentially through the population. An R number of less than one indicates the virus is in decline.
Sturgeon added: "All of this suggests that the measures five weeks ago to curb household meetings are having an effect and the additional measures introduced three weeks ago to significantly reduce hospitality may also be starting to have an impact."
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