Nicola Sturgeon announced today that schools will remain closed and lockdown restrictions will remain in West Lothian and the rest of mainland Scotland.
After today’s cabinet review the First Minister warned that lifting restrictions would risk infection rates for Covid-19 increasing again.
The current rules will stay in place until the middle of February and will be reviewed again on February 2.
The First Minister said: “We are still in a very precarious position.
"However, with that said, we do see signs for optimism in recent days. We believe that the lockdown restrictions and the sacrifices everyone continues to make are now beginning to have an impact.”
Ms Sturgeon said she believes the lockdown is working, even against the faster spreading new variant.
She continued: “It is important first of all to be cautious, we do need to see these trends continue to be more certain that this phase of the epidemic is now on a downward trajectory.
"And second, we need to be realistic that any improvement we are now seeing is down at this stage to us staying at home and reducing our interactions."
The news comes as infection rates for Covid-19 continue to fall in West Lothian.
The 139 cases per 100,000 over the week January 10 - 16 means the county continues to sit well under the national average, currently 210.
As of January 18 there were 33 new cases reported in West Lothian, 255 over the week and 5132 since records began.
A further 71 Covid-19 deaths have been recorded in Scotland over the last 24 hours.
Ms Sturgeon also announced that 1,165 new cases of COVID-19 were reported overnight, taking the total figure to 164,927.
The latest deaths bring the total toll to 5,376.
Meanwhile, new data from the Office for National Statistics shows that one in 10 people in England and Northern Ireland are testing for Covid-19 antibodies.
This is double the number from the last results in October when it was revealed that between two and seven per cent of people had antibody positivty.
One in 11 people in Scotland had Covid-19 by December last year, according to ONS stats which show there have been more than 106,000 deaths in the UK involving the virus.
An estimated one in eight people in England, one in 10 in Wales, and one in 13 in Northern Ireland had tested positive for Covid-19.
