Nicola Sturgeon has issued a further 'stay at home' message to Scots in an unexpected covid update before First Minister's Questions.
The First Minister provided an update to the Scottish Parliament this afternoon where she confirmed 5,951 cases were reported.
Of these, 45.4% showed the S-gene drop out which is linked to the Omicron variant. Ms Sturgeon stated that by tomorrow, it will pass the 50% mark, driving an "even more rapid increase in cases".
The Omicron variant's R number in Scotland is also estimated to be around 4.
It is set to become the dominant strain of coronavirus by tomorrow, the latest statistics suggest.
In the wake of the latest statistics, Ms Sturgeon has now asked people to stay at home "much more than you normally would" and limit interactions outside of their household.
Sign up to Glasgow Live newsletters for more headlines straight to your inbox
She said: "Right now, the risk of getting Covid from interactions with others is high and rising. So ask yourself before doing anything you might have planned over the coming days - is it as safe as it needs to be, and is it vital enough to justify that risk?"
The First Minister added that limiting interaction would allow people the best chance of spending Christmas with their families.
She continued: "I suspect what is most important to most of us over the next couple of weeks is having time with our families at Christmas. Every interaction we have before then increases the risk of us getting Covid and losing that."
A warning was also issued that the current trajectory of the Omicron variant could lead to NHS hospitals becoming overwhelmed.
Ms Sturgeon said: "In London, where transmission of Omicron is currently the highest in the UK, hospital admissions are now rising sharply. If we don’t act now, what we have feared all along but so far avoided - the overwhelming of the NHS - could happen."
