Scotland records biggest daily rise in Omicron cases

Scotland has recorded 674 Omicron cases in the past day, the biggest rise since the variant arrived north of the border, latest figures show.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) data published on Thursday shows the rise takes the overall total to 2,326.

It is the biggest rise since an increase of 367 Omicron cases was recorded on December 21, taking the total number to 1,478 at that time.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has warned that Scotland is facing a “tsunami” of the variant, which arrived north of the border in late November and is more transmissible than previous strains.

Latest figures show that Scotland has recorded 11 new coronavirus deaths and 6,215 positive tests in the last 24 hours.

It means the Covid-19 death toll in Scotland under the daily measure, of people who first tested positive for the virus within the previous 28 days, is 9,812.

The latest Scottish Government figures on Thursday show the daily positivity rate stood at 12.7%, down from 13% the previous day.

Officials said that PHS experienced a technical issue on Wednesday that meant that the new reported positive case number was lower than expected (2,434).

It said this has been resolved and the new cases figure for December 22 should have been 5,967, which has been corrected and the cases included in Thursday’s cumulative figures.

There were 540 people in hospital with recently confirmed Covid-19 on Wednesday, up four on the day before, and 38 people were in intensive care, down two.

Ms Sturgeon has urged people to get their booster jab.

She tweeted: “Finishing work today/tomorrow for Christmas? Before you switch off for a couple of days – for your own sake & for those working hard in NHS – get your booster. Appointments available today & on Christmas Eve.”

So far 4,377,002 people have received their first dose of a Covid-19 vaccination, 4,003,377 have received their second dose, and 2,782,462 have received a third dose or booster.