No fresh positive tests for coronavirus recorded in NHS Highland for the second day in a row; the news comes as Scotland registered just six newly-confirmed diagnoses for Covid-19 in the past 24 hours

FORTY-eight hours have passed since NHS Highland confirmed its most recent positive test for Covid-19.

The number of cases confirmed in the health board area since the pandemic began remained static at 377 when the latest daily update was announced at 2pm.

Only six newly-confirmed cases of the coronavirus were detected in the past 24 hours across the whole of Scotland.

And, in further good news, the country has now gone five days since the last fatality among those who have tested positive. The overall death toll remained 2490 this afternoon. The number of positive cases was 18,365.

In the north of Scotland, there were no fresh cases diagnosed in Orkney, Shetland or Eileanan Siar.

NHS Tayside also recorded no new positive tests, but NHS Grampian registered one additional case to take its overall total to 1431 since the start of the outbreak.

The number of people in its hospitals with confirmed Covid-19 also increased by one, to 32.

But the number of hospital cases in other health boards were so small that they did not register on the Scottish Government update chart, which only records a figure when there are five or more people receiving hospital care for the virus.

Nationally, there was a minor increase in the number of people receiving treatment in hospital last night, which rose from 330 to 336 in the past day. Only three of those were being treated in intensive care.

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