NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has confirmed a cluster of coronavirus cases linked to several businesses, including a pharmacy in Inverclyde.

First Minster Nicola Sturgeon revealed the cluster at her daily briefing in Edinburgh ahead of a meeting of an incident management team.

In a statement later yesterday, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGGC) said a cluster of eight positive Covid-19 cases had been identified and a “thorough investigation” was under way.

“Contact tracing of individuals has identified a number of businesses across Greater Glasgow and Clyde, including a pharmacy in Inverclyde, as being linked to the cases,” it said.

“An NHSGGC-led Incident Management Team is working with Scottish Government, Health Protection Scotland (HPS) and local environmental health teams to provide advice and support.

“None of the cases are experiencing anything but mild symptoms. Close contacts are being advised to self-isolate and other identified contacts are being followed up and given appropriate advice.”

Today, the First Minister will give an update on the route map out of lockdown to the Scottish Parliament.

She said at yesterday’s briefing that it is unlikely immediate changes will be made to lockdown restrictions this week, and that the Scottish Government is “very likely to adopt a very cautious approach”.

“We have made very significant changes over the past three weeks, including the resumption of indoor hospitality and tourism, and it is still too early to be completely assured about the impact – or hopefully the absence of impact – of these,” she said.

Sturgeon added the Scottish Government plans to make “major changes” – which have been previously announced – over the next three weeks.

Ministers hope children will be able to return to full-time schooling from August 11, with the aim of pausing the shielding system – with tougher restrictions on those with certain health conditions – from the end of this month. “Ensuring that those changes can take place without raising the prevalence of the virus too far is not going to leave us very much room for many other immediate changes,” she said.

While Sturgeon said there may appear to be “anomalies” in what is allowed and what is still not permitted under lockdown restrictions, she said there are “rational explanations” for these.

But she stressed it is also necessary to consider the cumulative impact of all the changes that are made and “that we have to be sensible about the order in which we make changes, so that we don’t create a situation where we are doing too much too quickly and therefore giving the virus the chance to overwhelm us”.

The First Minister said some parts of the economy and some people could be “disappointed” if the changes they want to be made do not happen in the’s review.

But she said she will announce, as far as possible, indicative dates in the future when other restrictions could be lifted, although this would be “conditional on continued suppression of the virus”.

The First Minister also used the briefing to announce changes to the publication of data related to coronavirus.

Sturgeon said the new “dashboard” will be able to “colour code local authority areas based on the proportion of neighbourhoods which exceed 55 confirmed cases per 100,000 over a seven day period”.

The data will cover both health board and local authority areas, with “more detailed information”.

A report published by the Scottish Government yesterday shows in the last week more than 16 million items of personal protective equipment have been distributed across Scotland – including almost 12 million gloves, three million masks and nearly one million aprons.

“In total, since March 1, more than 362m items have been distributed,” the First Minister said, saying the figures show the scale of the work being done to keep health and care workers safe.