Coronavirus: Scotland sees biggest daily rise in cases in almost a month
- Published
Scotland has seen the biggest daily rise in new confirmed cases of Covid-19 in almost a month.
The Scottish government said 21 cases had been detected in the last 24 hours - eight of them within NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.
It is the biggest daily increase since 21 June.
However, Scotland's national clinical director, Jason Leitch, said he expected to see "day-to-day variation" in the number of new cases.
In addition to the Glasgow and Clyde cases, there were five new cases in NHS Lothian with the rest spread around seven other health boards.
Mr Leitch told BBC Scotland that he did not believe the new cases were part of a cluster.
"I expect day-to-day variation and the next thing I look at is the spread around the country" he said.
"So 21 in one small town would worry me much more than 21 spread around the country - and these 21 are spread around the country."
Mr Leitch said he was confident in Scotland's test and protect system and also pointed out that about 16,500 tests had been carried out on Friday and so a rise in the number of positive results could also be expected.
Deputy First Minister John Swinney tweeted that the 21 new positive cases were a reminder of the "danger still out there", external.
The percentage of tests coming back positive remains low in Scotland and has been under 1% since the end of May.
The World Health Organisation says that one measure, external which can indicate whether an epidemic is under control is whether, with a comprehensive testing system, less than 5% of samples return a positive for Covid-19 over two weeks.
The Scottish government also confirmed, external that no new deaths were registered in Scotland following a positive test for the virus, meaning that only one death in the last 10 days has been recorded using this measure.
The number of patients in hospital with confirmed Covid-19 fell from 316 to 305, with just three of them in intensive care units.
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