Scotland has recorded 31 deaths from coronavirus and 885 positive tests in the past 24 hours, Scotland’s Deputy First Minister has said.
It brings the death toll under this measure – of people who first tested positive for the virus within the previous 28 days – to 6,916.
Speaking at the Scottish Government coronavirus briefing, John Swinney said 195,839 people have tested positive in Scotland, up from 194,954 the previous day.
READ MORE: Scottish Government urged to define Covid-19 'elimination' strategy
The daily test positivity rate is 4.4% - the second day in a row that the rate has been below 5%.
Mr Swinney said the latest Office for National Statistics infection survey confirmed that the positivity rate is in decline, adding it found that during the week beginning February 6 it was estimated one in 180 people in Scotland had Covid-19.
The deputy first minister said this “provides further indication that the lockdown restrictions are having the desired effect”.
Of today’s new cases 267 were in Greater Glasgow and Clyde, 166 were in Lanarkshire and 163 were in Lothian – the remaining cases were spread across nine other health board areas.
There are 1,222 people in hospital confirmed to have the virus, down 39 in 24 hours, and 98 patients are in intensive care, up three.
He said by 8.30am on Friday a total of 1,386,152 Scots had received their first dose of the coronavirus vaccine – an increase of 31,186 from the previous day.
Addressing the daily coronavirus briefing on Thursday, Nicola Sturgeon said the test positivity rate is lower than it has been for "some time", giving further reason to be hopeful that the numbers are going "very firmly in the right direction."
She added that the number of patients in hospital suffering from coronavirus is "quite a bit" below the peak last spring, although she warned that hospital continue to be under "very severe pressure."
Vaccination data
The Scottish Government will be able to publish more vaccination data than before following discussions with the UK Government and vaccine providers.
Previously, the UK Government had asked ministers not to publish data over security concerns.
The First Minister said: “As a result, the Scottish Government is publishing information today about the supplies we’ve received so far and from next week onwards will publish this data initially on a weekly basis.”
The data will be released on a Tuesday and will give information of vaccinations available until the previous Sunday.
She added: “We hope that regular publication of this data will be helpful to the media and to the public because it will give a fuller picture of the supplies we are receiving each week and will then allow for a better understanding and indeed closer scrutiny of the progress of the vaccination programme.”
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