SCOTLAND recorded 15 deaths among people who have tested positive for coronavirus over the last 24 hours, Nicola Sturgeon said.

Speaking at the Scottish Government’s daily virus briefing, the First Minister also said there have been 1429 coronavirus cases recorded overnight.

This accounted for 16.4% of those newly tested. Of the new cases 537 are in Greater Glasgow and Clyde, 327 are in Lanarkshire, 239 are in Lothian and 92 are in Ayrshire and Arran.

The remaining cases were spread across eight other health boards, with only Orkney and the Western Isles not recording new cases.

The First Minister added that there are now 570 people in hospital with Covid-19, an increase of 43 on the previous day.

There are also 49 people in intensive care, an increase of 14.

Addressing the new Covid-19 deaths, Sturgeon said: "Now, confidentiality means I can't ever go into detail about the people behind the statistics I report every day, but I do want to point out this to you today.

"Half of the 15 deaths I have just reported are of people under the age of 80, and a small number of them are of people under the age of 60. Please do not ever think that this virus only poses a risk to the lives of the very elderly.

"It poses a risk to all of us, and I'm asking everybody, again, to take and treat that risk extremely seriously.”