Covid in Scotland: Covid infections increase by 2,137 in Scotland

A further 2,137 cases of Covid-19 have been confirmed in Scotland, according to the latest government figures.

The number is lower than Friday's figure of 2,539, which was described as "worryingly high".

The first minister previously said the new variant of the virus was "accelerating spread" across Scotland.

Nicola Sturgeon warned on Friday that the next few weeks could be the most dangerous period for Scotland since March in the fight against Covid.

The latest figures for hospital admissions and deaths will not be published until Tuesday 5 January.

Daily confirmed cases reached record highs on the last three days of 2020, rising to to 2,622 on Thursday.

The percentage of positive cases also reached 14.4% on Wednesday - the highest it has been since the second wave of the pandemic began in the summer.

It had dropped to 10.8% on Friday. A percentage of lower than 5% is needed to show the virus is under control, according to the WHO.

All of mainland Scotland is under level four restrictions in an attempt to slow down the rate of virus spread.

A new study by London's Imperial College has found that the new variant of Covid-19 is "hugely" more transmissible than the virus's previous version.

It concludes that the new variant increases the Reproduction or R number by between 0.4 and 0.7.

The Scottish government's most recent estimate of the R number in Scotland has put it between 0.9 and 1.1. It needs to be below 1.0 for the number of cases to start falling.

The government has described the vaccination programme as a "light at the end of the tunnel" and has urged people to stay at home as much as possible in the meantime.