Another 121 Covid deaths recorded in Scotland in past week

Confirmed or suspected coronavirus deaths in Scotland decreased by 25 to 121 in the final week of January, according to the latest figures.

A total of 12,946 deaths have now been registered in Scotland where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate, statistics published by National Records of Scotland (NRS) on Wednesday show.

Of the 121 Covid deaths from January 24 to 30, 15 were people aged under 65, 22 were aged 65 to 74, and 84 were 75 or over.

Fifty-nine were male and 62 were female.

Seventy-five of the deaths were in hospital, 35 were in care homes, 10 were at home or in a non-institutional setting and there was one death in another institution.

There were 16 deaths in Glasgow, 13 in Fife and 12 in North Lanarkshire – the three council areas with the highest number of Covid-related fatalities in the last seven days.

Twenty-nine out of the 32 local authority areas had at least one Covid death last week.

Pete Whitehouse, director of statistical services at NRS, said: “The number of deaths from all causes registered in Scotland in this week was 1,248, which is 8% fewer than the five-year average.”

The data showed deaths from respiratory causes (65 fewer deaths), circulatory causes (20 fewer), cancer (20 fewer) and from dementia/Alzheimer’s (18 fewer) were below average for this time of year.

It said there were nine excess deaths from other causes, and the number of fatalities where Covid-19 was the underlying cause was 78.