Quarter of coronavirus deaths in Scotland related to care homes with around 40% of centres reporting cases

A quarter of coronavirus deaths in Scotland relate to care homes, with 433 centres affected, new figures have revealed.

For the first time, the National Records of Scotland (NRS) has published new statistics which reveal the number of people who died of either suspected or confirmed Covid-19 in the country’s care homes.

A total of 237 (25%) of Covid-19 deaths registered up to April 12 related to deaths in care homes, while 62% were in hospitals and 13% were at home or non-institutional settings.

The organisation introduced a new recording method last week which includes all cases where Covid-19 is mentioned in a person’s death certificate while daily figures produced by Health Protection Scotland (HPS) have so far included only individuals who have died within 28 days of testing positive for the virus.

This method recorded 962 deaths in Scotland linked to Covid-19 as of April 12, compared to the 569 fatalities recorded by the HPS system at that time – a jump of 41%.

The vast majority of Covid-19 deaths in Scotland so far have been among those aged over 65, with those aged over 75 accounting for 37% of the total.

Deaths have also been broken down by gender and the local health board involved.

Of the 969 Covid-19 deaths recorded last week, 56.5% were men and 37.3% were women.

Coronavirus was linked to 1.3% and 0.8% of deaths in the Tayside and Grampian health board areas respectively, with Highland linking the virus to 0.9% of deaths and 1.2% in Fife.

Statistics from the NRS also show the total number of deaths registered in Scotland for any reason last week was 1,969, an increase of 225 from the number registered in the previous week, and the highest total since at least 2004.

The average number of deaths recorded in the same week over the last five years was 1,100.

In today’s daily briefing, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon outlined the newly released figures as well as the daily numbers.

She added that 433 care homes have recorded a case of Covid-19 since the beginning of the outbreak, roughly 40%.

Ms Sturgeon said that the Scottish Government was working with partners to ensure that workers and residents are supported.

She added: “This shouldn’t need said, but I want to say it – the residents of care homes matter every bit as much to us as people in the community or in hospital.”