ANOTHER 64 people have died in Scotland after contracting Covid-19, Nicola Sturgeon has announced.
The deaths, recorded in the past 24 hours among patients who tested positive in the previous 28 days, bring the total under that measurement to 5166.
A further 1707 cases were also recorded in the latest update, with a positivity rate of 8.3%.
A total of 526 of those cases were in Greater Glasgow and Clyde, 242 in Lanarkshire, 205 in Grampian and 177 in Lothian.
The remaining cases are split among eight other health board areas.
Some 1829 people are currently in hospital with recently confirmed Covid-19, 35 more than yesterday.
Of those, 142 are in intensive care, an increase of eight.
📺 Watch live: First Minister Nicola Sturgeon holds a press conference on #coronavirus (#COVIDー19).
— Scottish Government (@scotgov) January 14, 2021
Joining the First Minister today is Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Nicola Steedman and Dr Alistair Cook. https://t.co/u9Y9U54gyU
READ MORE: Scottish Government's vaccine plan revealed — here's where you sit on the list
Speaking at the Scottish Government’s coronavirus briefing, the First Minister said: “As you can see from that figure, the hospital occupancy as a result of Covid is now significantly above the peak that it reached of around 1,500 patients in April during the first wave.”
On intensive care admission, she added: “While that figure remains below the peak back in April, the number in intensive care at any one time peaked at around 200 – 142 is below that but nevertheless, that figure is rising."
Sturgeon added that the latest research on the R number – the reproductive rate of the virus – suggests it is above 1, possibly as high as 1.4. However, those figures are based on data from before the latest lockdown was imposed.
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