Jason Leitch has admitted he is "concerned" about the rise in coronavirus cases as he urged Scots to think about reintroducing face coverings.
Scotland's National Clinical Director told MSPs on the Covid-19 Recovery Committee a new covid variant vaccine could be available later this year to combat the increase in infection.
The latest figures published on Friday by the Office for National Statistics revealed that one in 20 people in Scotland currently have the virus.
In the last seven days there have been 43 covid related deaths while there are currently more than a thousand people in hospitals across the country with the virus.
Leitch told the committee that Scots should think about reintroducing face coverings and hand washing.
Asked about the current Omicron variant, he said: "We are concerned, they have come at us four months, five months after the last variant.
"This is a sub variant of Omicron. It's still responding well to antiviral, still responding well to vaccines. People are not getting seriously unwell, but as the numbers rise that means you get people in hospital and you eventually, unfortunately get particularly the vulnerable dying.
"We're hopeful as we look across Europe that this won't peak at the level we saw a few months ago when Omicron first hit us.
"Our advice remains pretty much the same, but you can tell our tone has changed in the last few weeks. It's about staying off if you're sick whether that's college or work or school.
"Certainly reintroducing or thinking about face coverings, hand washing, surfaces all of those antiviral things and of course, the key intervention remains vaccination."
On the potential for a new vaccine, Leitch said: "Over the summer we will look at vaccine waning, we'll look at variants, we'll look at what vaccines are available because there will probably be a new variant vaccine by the autumn - not with us now.
"So if we gave you a vaccine today, would it maybe be better to wait and give you the variant vaccine? We just don't know, the science isn't there yet."
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