Coronavirus: Deaths climb by 80 as 7102 cases confirmed

Deaths of patients confirmed to have coronavirus in Scotland have risen to 779, an increase of 80.

Nicola Sturgeon confirmed the new Covid-19 death toll and said there were 7102 confirmed cases of the virus as of Thursday, a rise of 354 on the day before.

Speaking at a virtual session of First Minister’s Questions, she said she will attend a COBR meeting with UK counterparts later on plans to extend the lockdown.

Across the UK, more than 13,000 people with the virus have now died after a rise of 861 deaths in the last 24-hour period.

The First Minister also gave figures on hospital and intensive care (ICU) admissions in Scotland, with 1799 patients in hospital overall (a rise of 51) and 196 in an ICU (up one).

She said the figures show lockdown measures are working, given there are not “significant or sustained increases” of Covid-19 patients in hospital and ICUs.

But the First Minister stressed her “clear advice” was to continue the lockdown for at least another three weeks.

Counting all deaths involving coronavirus, including suspected and non-hospital cases, suggests the true death toll in Scotland is at least 1175.

A total of 962 deaths were registered by National Records of Scotland (NRS) where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate as of Sunday.

There have been a further 213 deaths reported so far this week in Health Protection Scotland’s daily statistics, tallied separately to the weekly NRS figures.