Scotland could face further measures to curb the rapid spread of covid from the new Omicron variant, John Swinney has warned.
The Deputy First Minister said the government has to be "up front" with the public about the danger of the highly transmissible strain, with an evidence paper saying the variant "threatens a rapid and large surge" in infections.
The upper range of the document's worst-case scenario projection for the Omicron variant falls just short of 25,000 cases a day by December 20, while the most-likely range of the worst-case scenario will see cases hit a little over 15,000.
In his appearance on BBC Breakfast, Mr Swinney said ministers are examining whether tighter restrictions will be brought in next week and that any changes will be shared with the public in the coming days.
He said: "We are looking at whether we need to take further measures to try to arrest the circulation of the virus.
"Those numbers I gave you, of two per cent of cases a week ago, 15 per cent now. We had a huge rise in cases yesterday, over 5,000 on a daily basis.
"That suggests we have an escalating problem, so the government is wrestling with the challenge of what are the right rules to have in place over this weekend and obviously we'll share more details of any more changes we propose to make with parliament in the course of the next few days."
It comes after the Scottish Government announced fresh measures this week to prevent what First Minister Nicola Sturgeon described as a "tsunami" of Omicron infections.
Scots have been urged to defer celebrations given the number of outbreaks that are being linked to Christmas parties.
Household contacts of positive cases in will also be forced to self-isolate regardless of testing negative for the virus.
Mr Swinney added: "We have to judge what is the best set of measures that we can take to try to interrupt the circulation of the virus. We can't have it moving at the pace it's moving at just now, because the danger is that we'll overwhelm our public and private services.
"We already faced yesterday some significant cancellation of rail services because of the self-isolation of railway staff, so it's going to affect us and we have to be up front with people about the dangers that we face."
