More than a million Covid cases in Scotland since pandemic began

More than a million Covid cases have now been recorded in Scotland since the start of the pandemic.

Since March 2020, the country has reported a total of 1,010,660 positive coronavirus test results, according to the latest Scottish Government figures.

The milestone comes amidst a host of staff shortages in various sectors due to a surge in Omicron cases following the festive period.

In the past 24 hours the country has recorded 18 coronavirus-linked deaths and 11,360 new cases.

The figures on Thursday show 57,217 new tests for Covid-19 reported results and 23.1% were positive, down from from 26.9% on Wednesday.

The newly recorded deaths take the toll under this measurement, of people who tested positive for the virus in the past 28 days, to 9890.

There were 1267 people in hospital on Wednesday with recently confirmed Covid-19, up 44 in 24 hours, and 43 were in intensive care, up one.

A total of 4,387,192 people have received their first dose of a Covid-19 vaccination, 4,033,635 have received a second dose, and 3,041,961 have received a third dose or booster.

Earlier on Thursday, Scotland’s health secretary said the NHS may be facing the most difficult weeks of its 73-year existence.

Humza Yousaf said due to the pandemic backlog and rising staff absences, health boards across the country are under significant pressure.

Yousaf said: “I don’t think truthfully there’s any way of sugar-coating the fact that these next few weeks will probably be amongst the most difficult our NHS has ever faced and its 73-year existence.

“We are facing pressures on a number of fronts.

“We have the pandemic backlog that has built up over the last 21-odd months, we have high levels of staff absences again much of that because of Omicron and its higher transmissibility.

“Then of course we also are treating a number of people, over 1200 people, in hospital with Covid.

“So those pressures coming during the winter months, but of course we tend to see busier hospitals, more pressure on our health service, that means that there’s a perfect storm.

“So this is going to be an extremely challenging period.”