Coronavirus: One more death in Scotland and 101 new cases

Another person has died with coronavirus in Scotland while new cases are above 100 for the fifth day in a row.

There are 101 new Covid-19 infections in Scotland on Thursday – the lowest total in the last five days – which amounts to 1.1% of all newly-tested Scots.

Of those, 53 are in the Greater Glasgow and Clyde region, where a spike in recent cases has led to a ban on household gatherings in three local authority areas.

Residents of Glasgow City, East Renfrewshire and West Dunbartonshire cannot host or visit people from other households, with indoor gatherings driving the recent rise in infections, the Scottish Government says.

The 101 new cases take the total in Scotland over the course of the pandemic to 20,889.

The latest death, announced by the First Minister at the daily coronavirus briefing, actually occurred in mid-August, she said.

Public Health Scotland has “only now got all the information required”, Nicola Sturgeon said, taking the death toll of those who died within 28 days of a positive Covid-19 test to 2496.

However, including National Records of Scotland (NRS) figures which count suspected coronavirus deaths and those who died more than 28 days after testing positive for Covid, the death toll is now 4230.

There are 259 people in hospital with Covid-19, a rise of one in the last 24 hours.

Of these patients, four were in intensive care, down one.

The reproduction rate of coronavirus in Scotland – the so-called “R number” is now “probably above one” and could be as high as 1.4, the First Minister said on Thursday.

The rate, which calculates the average number of people an infected person infects in turn, was estimated as below one for several months.

Sturgeon told the briefing: “I said recently that the R number is of slightly less concern when overall prevalence of the virus is low, and overall prevalence of the virus is still low in Scotland right now.

“But nevertheless this is a reminder that the virus is spreading again here, just as it is elsewhere in the UK, across Europe and indeed in the wider world, so it is a reminder of the need for us to take this seriously and do all of the right things.”

She said the measures in the Glasgow area announced this week should serve as a “wake-up call”.

Addressing the decision not to close hospitality businesses in the city – as was done in last month’s local lockdown in Aberdeen – the FM said increased data from the “test and protect” scheme is allowing for more “targeted” interventions.

NHS Grampian officials announced on Wednesday that August’s outbreak in Aberdeen, which began in a number of city pubs, is now over.

Sturgeon said that data being presented to government showed a number of small, localised clusters – predominantly caused by indoor household gatherings – had caused a spike in new cases in the west of Scotland.

She conceded that the decision to leave restaurants and pubs in Glasgow could seem “counter-intuitive”.

But the First Minister continued: “What I’m trying to set out is that the analysis that we now get from test and protect enables us to be much more targeted and proportionate, rather than what we were faced with earlier in the year of simply imposing a blanket lockdown everywhere that really meant everyone had to stay at home.

“Now, we try to be much more targeted, much more proportionate, but because these decisions are being guided by the analysis that has been done, hopefully these measures are effective.”