A FURTHER 92 Scots have died of coronavirus in the past 24 hours.
Nicola Sturgeon revealed that 1656 positive cases were reported yesterday, which is 7.5% of all tests carried out. The total number of cases since the pandemic started is now 166,583.
The First Minister also said 2003 people are in hospital with Covid, an increase of 14 from yesterday, and six more people have been put in intensive care, bringing that totoal to 156.
The National Records of Scotland reported that a total of 7448 people have died in Scotland with confirmed or suspected coronavirus
The figures show 368 deaths relating to Covid-19 were registered between January 11 and 17, down 23 from the previous week.
Of these, the majority were in hospital at 240, with 97 in care homes, 27 at home or in a non-institutional setting and four in other institutions.
A total of 44 took place in Glasgow, 39 in Edinburgh and 34 in Fife.
There were 6324 more deaths in Scotland in 2020 than the average over the previous five years.
The statistics body found the provisional total number of deaths registered over the year was 64,084.
This compares to an average of 57,760 over the previous five years resulting in 6324 excess deaths.
Of the 6834 deaths involving Covid-19 between March and December 2020, 93% had at least one pre-existing condition.
The most common main pre-existing condition was dementia and Alzheimer’s, accounting for 28% of coronavirus deaths.
The statistics are published weekly and cover all deaths registered in Scotland where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate.
They differ from the lab-confirmed coronavirus deaths announced daily by the Scottish Government because the NRS figures include suspected or probable cases of Covid-19.
It comes as it was found that BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine is expected to be effective against the rapidly spreading variant of coronavirus in the UK.
Nicola Sturgeon warned the new variant was “fast becoming the dominant one in Scotland” in December.
READ MORE: Thousands of frontline staff vaccinated in push towards full Covid jag rollout
Scientists found that antibodies in 16 patients who had been vaccinated were able to fight off a test-tube version of the virus – including all of its mutations.
The patients were selected from the previous German vaccine trial and included eight younger people, between 18 and 55-years-old, and eight older adults, between 56 and 85-years-old.
The report, which has not been peer reviewed yet, found there was “no biologically significant difference in neutralisation activity” between samples of the original strain detected in Wuhan and the UK-variant.
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