Nicola Sturgeon will update Scotland on the Covid pandemic in a televised update on Thursday as cases continue to rise across the country.
The first minister will update Scots on the government’s latest assessment of the health emergency before taking questions from the media.
Hopes that the continued spike in new coronavirus cases would decline were shattered after 3,799 new infections were reported on Wednesday.
SNP health secretary Humza Yousaf had said case numbers in the coming days would be “critical” to determining whether the situation would stabilise.
When is Nicola Sturgeon’s Covid update?
Nicola Sturgeon is expected to give her update on Covid from Edinburgh at around 12:15pm, she will be joined by the chief medical officer, Dr Gregor Smith.
She is likely to provide an update on the latest statistics and any new action the government is planning.
The briefing will be available to watch on the BBC Scotland channel.
You can see what Nicola Sturgeon announced here.
After almost 3,800 new cases were reported Wednesday, Nicola Sturgeon said restrictions should ease with “care and caution”.
Whilst remaining confident of a further lockdown easing on July 19 the first minister said some restrictions would remain in place unlike in England.
Health boards across the country have shared concern about the impact the increase in new cases is beginning to have.
NHS Fife has opened extra wards to help treat an expected increase in the number of patients requiring hospital treatment for the virus.
The Kingdom’s top doctor said health and care services were under increasing strain as a result of the wave of new infections.
“What is different at this time is that there are more emergency surgical and medical patient admissions than during the previous waves,” Dr Chris McKenna said.
Asked about this pressure on NHS Fife and other health boards, the first minister said she was “certainly concerned about building pressure on our National Health Service”.
She added: “We know that vaccines are weakening the link between cases and hospitalisations, so there’s a much lower proportion of people with Covid-19 now who need to go to hospital, but even a lower proportion of a big number is putting pressure on our National Health Service.
“All of us need to get vaccinated as soon as we’re invited; vaccines will get us out of this, but we need to get as many people as possible vaccinated as quickly as possible.
“We’re going as fast as we can based on supplies and the clinical advice on leaving eight weeks between the first and the second doses.”
Coronavirus in Scotland – track the spread in these charts and maps