Another 6,215 Covid cases have been confirmed in Scotland with the Omicron variant now the dominant strain across the nation.
The latest figures have been published by the Scottish Government and Public Health Scotland (PHS) this afternoon as part of the national Covid-19 daily briefing.
A note accompanying today's figures explained yesterday's lower than anticipated case numbers.
It reads: "On December 22, PHS experienced a technical issue that meant that the new reported positive case number was lower than expected (2,434).
"This has been resolved and the new cases figure for December 22 should have been 5,967. This has been corrected in our trends file and these cases are included in today's cumulative figures.
"PHS also note there continues to be an impact on turnaround times between specimens being taken and results reported, due to larger volumes of tests being processed by labs."
Nationally, there are 540 patients being treated in hospital which is up four from yesterday. There are currently 38 people with the disease being treated in ICUs.
The number of newly-reported positive coronavirus cases recorded by NHS Ayrshire & Arran has increased by 664 to 58,749.
Of the new cases, which don't include those which should have been reported yesterday, 191 were from North Ayrshire, 168 in East Ayrshire and 139 attributed to South Ayrshire.
A total of 824,088 positive tests have now been recorded from 3.878 million tests carried out since the start of the pandemic.
According to Public Health Scotland's rolling seven-day infection rate per 100,000 population, West Lothian has the highest rate in the country – at 1,144.6 as of Wednesday, December 22.
City of Edinburgh has the second-highest infection rate at 1,054.7 while Renfrewshire is third with 1,046.3.
In terms of Ayrshire's local authorities, North Ayrshire's is 878.2; it is 752.5 in East Ayrshire and South Ayrshire's is 700.0.
A total of 17 of Scotland's 32 council regions have an infection rate below the national average of 769.5.
7-day infection rate per 100,000 population for each council area...
294.3 Na h-Eileanan Siar
314.8 Shetland Islands
364.0 Highland
398.5 Dumfries & Galloway
428.6 Orkney Islands
430.0 Angus
456.6 Aberdeen City
471.3 Aberdeenshire
524.0 Perth & Kinross
524.1 Scottish Borders
530.2 Dundee City
594.5 Moray
609.9 Argyll & Bute
611.2 Inverclyde
655.4 Fife
700.0 South Ayrshire
752.5 East Ayrshire
799.3 Stirling
801.3 Clackmannanshire
805.3 Falkirk
844.3 East Lothian
862.1 Glasgow City
878.2 North Ayrshire
891.7 North Lanarkshire
959.7 Midlothian
979.3 East Dunbartonshire
989.3 South Lanarkshire
996.3 East Renfrewshire
1,008.6 West Dunbartonshire
1,046.3 Renfrewshire
1,054.7 City of Edinburgh
1,144.6 West Lothian
A further 11 deaths mean 9,812 people have passed away since March 2020.
However, data from the National Records of Scotland (NRS) shows 12,372 deaths had been registered up to Sunday, December 19 where the disease was mentioned on the death certificate.
Across the UK, the figure is 147,573 as of last night and 171,801 with Covid mentioned on the death certificate.
There are 67 patients being treated for the disease in Ayrshire hospitals, which is down one on yesterday, and fewer than five people in ICUs.
Nationally, a total of 4,377,002 people have received one dose of a Covid vaccine; 4,003,377 are double jabbed and 2,782,462 people have received a third dose/booster.
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