NHS Grampian has recorded its first death of a person with coronavirus in six weeks, according to the latest statistics from the National Records of Scotland (NRS).
The person who died was aged over 65, and was in Aberdeen City.
The NRS, which publishes its coronavirus statistics every Wednesday, says that seven deaths were registered in Scotland this week where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate – one fewer than last week.
Four of the people who died were female and three were male, while four were aged over 85, one was aged between 75 and 84, and two were aged between 65 and 74 years old.
There were four deaths in care homes, and the other three happened in hospital.
Age, sex and location of death are not linked to specific health board areas in the statistics.
Picture across region
It has now been seven weeks since a new death was recorded in Aberdeenshire, and six weeks since any were recorded in Moray.
In the Highland local authority area, no new deaths have been recorded since the week beginning March 22 this year.
One person is recorded as having died with Covid in Orkney so far in 2021, and the most recent death in Shetland was recorded in the week beginning January 18.
There have been eight deaths of people with coronavirus on the Western Isles this year, with the most recent recorded in the final week of May.
Unequal impact
Commenting on the latest statistics, NRS Director of Statistical Services Pete Whitehouse drew attention to the link between Covid mortality and deprivation.
He said: “The latest figures show that last week there were seven deaths where COVID-19 was mentioned on the death certificate.
“After adjusting for age, people living in the most deprived areas were 2.4 times as likely to die with Covid as those in least deprived areas.
“The size of this gap has slowly widened from 2.1 to 2.4 over the course of the pandemic.”
The statistics from the National Records of Scotland are compiled in a slightly different way to those released daily by Public Health Scotland (PHS), which is why there are some disparities.
While PHS records the deaths of people who had recently tested positive for Covid-19, the NRS records the people for whom coronavirus is mentioned on the death certificate.
As of the end of last week, there were 10,137 deaths registered across Scotland where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate.