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Coronavirus (COVID-19): daily data for Scotland

Published: 29 Dec 2020
Directorate:
Chief Medical Officer Directorate
Part of:
Coronavirus in Scotland, Health and social care

This is updated each day to provide the latest available data on COVID-19 in Scotland.

Published:
29 Dec 2020
Coronavirus (COVID-19): daily data for Scotland

Scottish numbers: 29 December 2020

Summary

  • 1,895 new cases of COVID-19 reported
  • 14,179 new tests for COVID-19 that reported results – 14.4% of these were positive
  • 7 new reported deaths of people who have tested positive (noting that Register Offices have been closed over the public holidays)
  • 65 people are in intensive care with recently confirmed COVID-19
  • 1,092 people are in hospital with recently confirmed COVID-19

During 1-4 January, daily updates will be published to provide the latest data on the number of new cases of COVID-19 and the test positivity rate. During this period (1-4 January) there will be no updates to the remaining statistics – you can access the latest available data in the sections below and in the trends excel file. Following the next holiday weekend, we will update on Tuesday 5 January – we will provide the latest daily data for that day and the previous 4 days.

Local area data

  • Public Health Scotland’s interactive dashboard now provides a map showing the number of cases in local areas, as well as trends for local authorities and NHS boards

Full breakdown

Cases and testing

 

On 29 December:

  • 1,895 new cases of COVID-19 reported
  • 14,179 new tests for COVID-19 that reported results, of which
    • 2,038 (14.4%) were positive
    • 5,121 were from NHS Scotland labs
    • 9,058 were from the UK Government testing programme

During the week ending 29 December, in total:

  • 40,104 people were newly tested
  • 8,420 people tested positive for the first time
  • 130,223 tests reported (24 tests per 1,000 population)
  • 9,326 positive tests reported (7.2% of tests)

For the week 12 December to 18 December, the ONS Covid-19 Infection Survey estimates that:

  • 1 in 140 people in Scotland had the coronavirus (COVID-19) (95% credible interval: 1 in 180 to 1 in 115).
  • this equates to around 37,100 people (95% credible interval: 28,900 to 46,300)

Since the start of the outbreak, as at 29 December:

  • A total of 1,358,366 people in Scotland have been tested at least once. Of these people:
    • 122,786 have tested psitive
    • 1,235,580 were cnfirmed negative
  • A total of 1,266,820 COVID-19 tests carried out through NHS labs and 2,062,872 through UKG Labs in Scotland have reported results

Further information

Deaths

 
  • On 29 December, 7 new reported death(s) of people who have tested positive (noting that Register Offices have been closed over the public holidays)
  • In the week ending 20 December, 203 deaths were registered where COVID-19 was on the death certificate

Since the start of the outbreak:

  • 4,467 people have died who have tested positive as at 29 December
  • 6,298 deaths have been registered in Scotland where COVID-19 was mentioned on the death certificate up to 20 December
  • 40% of COVID-19 registered deaths related to deaths in care homes, 54% were in hospitals and 6% were at home or non-institutional settings (as at 20 December)

Further information

Hospitals and ICU

 
  • 1,092 people were in hospital on 28 December with recently confirmed COVID-19; of these 65 were in intensive care.
  • In the week ending 21 December, 451 COVID-19 patients were admitted to hospital.
  • In the week ending 28 December there were 34 patients who have been confirmed with COVID-19 admitted to intensive care.
  • 9,096 inpatients who tested positive for COVID-19 have been discharged from hospital since 5 March.
  • As at 23 December 1,013 people were delayed in hospital.

Further information

Vaccination

 
  • the first vaccines against COVID-19 were administered on Tuesday 8 December.
  • the number of individuals vaccinated is included in the weekly PHS COVID-19 statistical report
  • from 8 December to 20 December 2020, 56,676 individuals received their first dose of COVID-19 vaccination.

Further information

  • on 16 December we reported that our management information system showed that 18,644 people received their first dose of the vaccine by the end of Sunday 13 December.
  • this figure was sourced from a management information system, and reflected the latest data reported up to 8:30 am on 16th December. The number of people receiving their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine will be higher than reported due to time lags, and data may be revised.
  • on Thursday 10 December we reported that 5,330 people received their first dose of the vaccine between Tuesday 8 and Wednesday 9 December. 
  • there will be no weekly PHS COVID-19 Statistical report on 30 December. Therefore, on 30 December we will publish a figure here for the number of individuals vaccinated by 27 December.

Care homes

 
  • As at 23 December, 138 (13%) adult care homes had a current case of suspected COVID-19
  • In the week 14 - 20 December there were 326 new confirmed positive COVID-19 cases among care home residents
  • There have been 6,995 confirmed cases of COVID-19 amongst residents of care homes for all ages since 9 March
  • In the week 14 - 20 December at least 7,836 individual care home staff, and 2,976 residents were tested in care homes with a confirmed case of COVID-19.
  • In the week 14 - 20 December at least 33,593 individual care home staff were tested in care homes with no confirmed cases of COVID-19.

Further information

NHS and care home staff

 
  • In the week ending 22 December, on average 2,663 NHS staff, or around 1.6% of the NHS workforce, reported absent each day for a range of reasons related to COVID-19.
  • In the week ending 22 December, 576 staff were reported as absent in adult care homes due to COVID-19, based on returns received from 670 (62%) adult care homes. Staff absent due to COVID-19 represents 1.7% of all adult care home staff (34,066) for whom a return was provided.
  • We have been notified by Health Boards or the Care Inspectorate of 15 deaths of healthcare workers and 21 deaths of social care workers, related to COVID-19, since the start of the pandemic. We are not able to confirm how many of these staff contracted COVID-19 through their work.

Further information

  • the absence figures for NHS staff and care home staff are calculated in different ways and caution should be exercised in making comparisons – see data definitions and sources
  • the data published weekly on NHS and care homes staff are available in the trends in daily data excel file

Education

 

On Wednesday 17 December 2020, provisional figures show that:

  • there were 39,386 pupils absent either for all or part of the school day because of COVID-19 related reasons.
  • the overall attendance rate at local authority primary, secondary and special schools was 85.0%.
  • % of school openings where pupils were not in school for COVID-19 related reasons was 5.6%, and for non COVID-19 related reasons was 9.4%.
  • as schools have now begun to close for the end of term, publication of these figures will be paused and will recommence following the return of schools next term.

In the 7 days up to and including Thursday 10 December:

  • 90 university students have been reported by universities as testing positive for COVID-19, an average of around 15 cases per day. We are aware of a total of 3,900 since the start of term.
  • 25 college students have been reported by colleges as testing positive for COVID-19, an average of around 5 cases per day. We are aware of a total of 560 since the start of term.
  • as Universities and Colleges are now breaking up for end of term, publication of these figures will be paused and will recommence in semester 2.

(See data definitions and sources for further context on these numbers).

Further information

About these data

 

The data reported are management information based on a range of operational systems. While checks are completed before publication to ensure data robustness, due to the speed of reporting these data are not currently subject to the full range of processes and quality assurance that would be required for Official Statistics. For more information about the data please see Data definitions and sources.

The latest numbers will publish at 2pm each day. 

Previous data is available at: Trends in daily data. Also available as open data at https://statistics.gov.scot.

Other data sources

 

Public Health Scotland weekly statistical report

Public Health Scotland publish a weekly statistical report that presents data on COVID-19 across NHSScotland. As well as providing information on COVID-19 confirmed cases and admissions to hospital, it looks at some of the wider impacts of the virus on the healthcare system, including trends in COVID-19 related use of other NHS services such as NHS24 and Scottish Ambulance Service. It also presents statistics on Test and Protect and quarantining and demographic characteristics (age, sex, deprivation) of people affected by COVID-19. Weekly reports and accompanying interactive dashboards are available on the Public Health Scotland website.

COVID-19: modelling the epidemic in Scotland

The Scottish Government, like other governments around the world, is responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. A key part of this response is to model the potential spread and level of the virus in Scotland, and to compare the Scottish experience to other parts of the UK and other countries around the world. The results of this work are used to help the Scottish Government and the wider public sector, and in particular the health service, plan and put in place what is needed to keep us safe and treat people who have virus e.g. to decide how many Intensive Care Beds (ICU) we need for COVID patients. Modelling reports are available on the Coronavirus (COVID-19): modelling the epidemic publications page

Scottish Government COVID-19 four harms dashboard

The Scottish Government publishes a dashboard which brings together data and evidence on the broader impacts of COVID-19. These are referred to as the four harms of COVID-19:

  • direct health impact
  • wider health impacts
  • societal impacts
  • economic impacts

It is updated every Monday.

ONS Covid-19 Infection Survey

The Scottish results of the Office for National Statistics (ONS) COVID-19 Infection Survey are published on the Scottish Government website, and on the ONS website alongside results for England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The survey aims to establish:

  • how many people test positive for COVID-19 infection at a given point in time, regardless of whether they report experiencing coronavirus symptoms (estimates first published on 23 October)
  • the number of people who test positive for antibodies, to indicate how many people are ever likely to have had the infection (estimates first published on 24 November)
  • the average number of new infections per week over the course of the study

As the sample size is increased in subsequent weeks, further analysis will become available.