Fife sees highest number of Covid deaths

Fife recorded the highest number of confirmed or suspected coronavirus deaths in Scotland last week.

Scotland registered 72 deaths where Covid19 was mentioned on the death certificate in the week to January 9, up 27 on the previous week.

A total of 12,543 deaths of this kind have now been recorded in Scotland, statistics published by the National Records of Scotland (NRS) yesterday show.

In the week of January 3 to 9, there were 12 deaths in people aged under 65, 12 in the 65-74 age group and 48 deaths in those aged 75 or older.

There were 49 deaths in hospitals, 18 in care homes and five at home or in a non-institutional setting, with 32 of those who died male and 40 female.

The highest number of deaths occurred in the Fife Council area – with 10 – while there were eight in Edinburgh and seven in Glasgow.

Pete Whitehouse, director of statistical services at NRS, said: “The latest figures show that last week there were 72 deaths where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate.

“This is 27 more deaths than the previous week.

“The number of deaths from all causes registered in Scotland in this week was 1,208, 13% lower than the fiveyear average.

“Statistics based on death registrations can be volatile at this time of year due to a combination of registration office opening hours, how public holidays fall and decisions people take regarding registering a death during this period.

“Care needs to be taken when interpreting data for the first and last few weeks of the year. The real trend will become clearer in the coming weeks.”