Further coronavirus deaths in Falkirk area

A further eight people have died in the last seven days taking the number of deaths to 119.

Of these, almost half have been in care homes.

The number of residents in care facilities who have died through Covid-19 now stands at 59, an increase of three in the last week.

A further four died in hospital taking that total to 47.

The number who died in their own home now stands at 13, one more during the past seven days.

In Forth Valley, which includes the Stirling and Clackmannanshire council areas, the number of Covid-19 deaths is now 215, a rise of 12 in the last week.

Once again half have been in care homes – 111, while 82 were in hospital and 22 in an individual’s home.

The proportion of care home deaths in this area is slightly above the national average, according to the figures released by the National Records of Scotland.

The figure of coronavirus linked deaths in Scotland is 3779 with 1749 of these care home residents. A further 1760 have died in hospitals and 264 in their homes.

Latest figures issued by the Scottish Government for Covid-19 tests show there appears to be a slow down of positive results in Forth Valley.

There was only an increase of one overnight taking the total to 919.

Only ten people are being treated in a hospital in the region with less than five of these in Forth Valley Royal Hospital’s intensive care unit. The government does not release the figure if it is below five.

A total of 106,984 people in Scotland have been tested through NHS labs to date. Of these, 91,744 were confirmed negative and 15,240 were positive.

The positive tests now stands at 14.2 per cent, whereas two weeks ago the figure was closer to 25 per cent.

However, the government has said this will be an underestimate of the number of cases. Not everyone with the virus will display symptoms and not all those with symptoms will be tested.