NICOLA Sturgeon has warned the public to be cautious as the number of net cases over the past week has almost risen by almost 50% compared to the seven days previous.

The First Minister was giving an update on the state of the pandemic in Holyrood this afternoon, where she confirmed that the Delta variant is now the most prominent in Scotland and accounting for the "majority" cases. 

And, in the latest figures there were 685 new cases of Covid-19 reported yesterday.

Of 14,873 new tests for Covid which reported results, this equates to a 5% positivity rate. 

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Fortunately, there were no new reported deaths of those who have tested positive for the virus yesterday, although there are currently 12 patients in intensive care with recently confirmed Covid-19. And, there are 121 people who were in hospital yesterday with the virus. 

However, Sturgeon made the point that if you compare the number of new cases over the past week and the week before, there has been a marked rise in cases. 

She said: "In the past week they have increased by approximately 50%. Over the past seven days there has been a net increase of 5,475 new cases.This is a rise from 3,728 in the 7 days prior to that.

The National:

"Now this will partly be a consequence of restrictions easing, it's always the case and we have always made that clear that as we start interacting more the virus does have more opportunities to spread.

"The recent rise is also being driven by the more transmissable delta variant, which now accounts for the majority of all new cases being reported.

"However, although cases are rising, the key question is the extent to which vaccination is weakening the link between an increase in new cases and an increase in serious health harms.

"We continue to assess this data very closely and at this stage it's important to be very clear, we remain optimistic that vaccination will allow us to move progressively to a less restrictive way of dealing with Covid." 

It comes as 3,403,866 people have received the first dose of the Covid vaccination and 2,282,203 have received their second dose.

More than half of the adult population have now had two doses, with over 90% of those aged over 60 fully protected, and more than 80% of those over the age of 50 - age groups which were most at risk from hospitalisation and death.