SCOTLAND'S Covid death toll has officially passed 10,000 but weekly fatalities has fallen slightly.

National Records of Scotland (NRS) data shows 34 deaths relating to Covid-19 were registered between April 5 and 11, down four on the previous week.

It brings the total number of fatalities up to Sunday to 10,031.

Of the deaths recorded this week, 26 happened in hospital, five in care homes and three at home or in a non-institutional setting.

Monthly analysis from the NRS suggests March 2021 was the first month since October 2020 where Covid-19 was not the top cause of death, but the fifth.

The statistics are published weekly and cover all deaths registered in Scotland where Covid-19 is 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.

READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon reveals accelerated change to Scotland's lockdown easing

The NRS also warned care should be taken when interpreting the number of deaths in the past two weeks, as there may have been a delay in registering some fatalities due to the recent public holidays and the closure of registration offices for Easter.

Last week, the figure sat at 9,997 – however six deaths were also recorded in the daily figures from Public Health Scotland.

The latest figures released by the Scottish Government today also show that another 278 positive cases of the coronavirus were reported, accounting for 1.3% of the 24,794 tests that reported results in the past 24 hours.

The new deaths bring the total number of patients who have died after previously contracting the virus in Scotland to 7636.

The total number of positive Covid cases that have been reported in Scotland now stands at 222,660.

There were 119 people in Scottish hospitals yesterday with recently confirmed Covid-19 and 20 of those patients were in intensive care.

This is a decrease of 14 total patients in hospital on the previous day and a decrease of one patient in intensive care.

A total of 2,694,971 people in Scotland have now received the first dose of a Covid vaccination and 634,422 have received a second dose.

It was noted in the official data that today’s vaccination figures include a backlog of GP system data that was not included in yesterday's totals. This includes 886 records from April 11 and around 5700 from the days prior.