THE number of Scots in hospital with Covid-19 had continued to rise into new record highs, the latest figures show.

The news comes as 50 further deaths of coronavirus patients were reported.

On March 24, data showed there were 2322 people in Scotland in hospital with the disease. Of these patients, 26 were in intensive care.

This is more than at any other point in the pandemic, breaking the record high of 2257 set on Wednesday. A new record high has been set every day so far this week.

The last time there were more than 2000 coronavirus patients in Scottish hospitals was January 2021, when the number peaked at 2053.

The news comes as a further 50 deaths of coronavirus patients were recorded in just 24 hours.

This brings the total under this measure, of people who died within 28 days of testing positive, to 11,246.

There were also 13,564 new cases of Covid-19 recorded on Thursday. A total of 11.5% of these were reinfections.

In terms of the vaccination effort, 4,340,913 people have received their first jag, 4,089,448 have received their second, and have 3,445,629 received a third dose or booster.