A light at the end of the tunnel

Latest figures show the rate of coronavirus spread across Ayrshire is continuing to gradually slow.

It comes as First Minister Nicola Sturgeon hailed a ‘ light at the end of the tunnel’ in the hunt for a vaccine.

In the last seven days 628 positive tests have been recorded across the region. The previous week 642 were recorded and the week before that the number was 759.

However, the rate of hospital admissions and deaths have sadly continued to rise. On Monday a total of 107 patients were fighting the virus in the health board region – a rise of five from last week. 10 people are in ICU.

Latest figures also show 20 NHS Ayrshire patients have died from coronavirus in the last week. That’s 12 more than the previous week. 225 people from Ayrshire have now passed away after testing positive for the virus.

Of the deaths in the past week eight were from South Ayrshire, seven were from East and five from North Ayrshire.

Across Scotland, one new virus death was recorded on Monday, but Register Offices are now generally closed at weekends. Across Ayrshire 73 new cases of Covid- 19 were recorded on Monday. 17 of those were in South Ayrshire while 29 were in East Ayrshire.

Across Scotland 912 cases were reported on Monday and 1,226 people were in hospital on Monday with Covid. Of these 105 were in intensive care.

Meanwhile there was a huge development in the hunt for a coronavirus vaccine and Nicola Sturgeon welcomed the news that a candidate has a 90 per cent effectiveness. The First Minister welcomed the first interim results in large- scale trials in relation to the Pfizer/ BioNTech vaccine. Sturgeon said: “That is positive news. It should give us all some tentative hope. There is light at the end of this tunnel.”