By Democrat reporter
Coronavirus-related deaths were 41% higher in England and Wales than the government’s hospital-only figures in the week to 10 April, Good Friday.
Nicola Sturgeon FM is scheduled to give the Scottish figures at a media conference in Edinburgh at 12.30pm.
The new statistics, revealed in an Office for National Statistics report, take into account deaths outside of hospitals.
Overall, 13,121 deaths involving COVID-19 have occurred in England and Wales up to 10 April, and registered up to 18 April, which is 41% higher than the 9,288 people who died in UK hospitals during the same period reported by the Department of Health.
The figures have been labelled “sad and shocking”, with Labour saying they were “only scratching the surface of the emerging crisis in social care”.
Ministers have promised to ramp up testing for social care workers and residents, pledging tests for all those who need them, as well as improving access to vital protective equipment.
And following demands for the government to set out daily figures for care home deaths, the ONS will from next week publish totals of deaths involving COVID-19 in care homes, with the figures based on deaths reported by care home operators to the Care Quality Commission.
The latest ONS weekly total shows that there were 1,662 deaths involving the coronavirus in England and Wales registered up to 10 April that happened outside of hospital.