More than 2,200 hospital patients recover from coronavirus in Scotland

The first minister has confirmed that more than 2,200 patients in Scotland have left hospital having recovered from coronavirus.

Nicola Sturgeon unveiled the statistic at her daily briefing today.

Recovery figures have only been included in the daily release of data since this week - though there is currently no information on the number of people thought to have recovered from the disease after not receiving hospital treatment.

Ms Sturgeon also confirmed a further 64 deaths have been registered since yesterday, taking the hospital death toll to 1,184.

But she says there is light at the end of the tunnel, with a drop in the number of people being admitted.

She said: "These figures for hospital admissions and admissions into intensive care are giving us real and growing cause for optimism that the current lockdown is working to suppress the virus.

"That's the good news, perhaps the less good news is that also tells us why we must stick with these lockdown restrictions because as I've said many times standing here before, any easing up on that at all right now would risk us putting all of that progress into reverse and the virus quickly running out of control again."

Elsewhere, a plane carrying 100,000 testing kits and 10 million face masks landed at Glasgow Prestwick Airport earlier.

It is in addition to a similar cargo which arrived at the airport last weekend.

Ms Sturgeon has also confirmed that essential workers and their family members will be able to book themselves to be tested for coronavirus, after a similar scheme launched in England today.

But she says there are still a couple of issues to be ironed out before it goes live.