There have been 685 new cases of Covid diagnosed in Scotland while the nation's death toll continues to rise.
Data has been published by the Scottish Government this afternoon as part of its national COVID-19 daily briefing.
Tragically, a further 57 patients, including five people from the NHS Ayrshire & Arran health board region, have died after contracting Covid which means 6,885 people have passed away since March.
However, data from the National Records of Scotland (NRS) shows 9,053 deaths had been registered up to Sunday, February 14 where the disease was mentioned on the death certificate.
Across the UK, the figure was 118,933 as of last night.
The number of positive coronavirus cases recorded by NHS Ayrshire & Arran rose by 31 to 14,843.
There are 12 people, within the health board's region, in intensive care with confirmed COVID-19 which is the same number as yesterday.
In addition, the number of people in hospital with confirmed coronavirus at midnight was 142 which is down two from yesterday.
In terms of the rolling seven-day infection rate per 100,000 population, North Ayrshire stood at 128.4 as of Wednesday, February 17. In East Ayrshire, it was 318.0 while it was 58.6 in South Ayrshire.
East Ayrshire's figure, the highest in Scotland, can be attributed, in the main, to an outbreak at Kilmarnock prison.
Across Scotland, as of 8.30am this morning, a total of 1,354,966 people had received the first dose of their Covid vaccine with 24,169 having received their second dose.
A total of 194,954 positive tests have been recorded since the end of February from 1.641 million tests carried out.
