Rates of Covid-19 are rising to the highest recorded in Scotland since April as one in 18 had the virus last week, according to new figures.
New data from the Official National Statistics (ONS) states that 288,200 people had the virus in the week ending June 24 and is the highest figure since early April. It is expected that this rise has come from an outbreak of the sub-variants of the Omicron strain - BA.4 and BA.5.
According to ZOE Health Study, the new BA.5 variant is, "particularly good at immune escape, causing a sharp increase in reinfections in people in spite of vaccines and natural immunity, particularly over the past few weeks".
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Professor Tim Spector, CEO of ZOE expects cases to rise to 300,000 soon as the UK sees a 27 per cent increase in infections on last week.
Speaking on the rise in cases, Scotland's national clinical director Prof Jason Leitch told BBC Radio Scotland's Drivetime programme: "Let's be concerned but let's see what we can do as individuals to help."
While he added the latest data was "worrying", particularly for groups such as the elderly or immunosuppressed, he added: "There's no suggestion we should go backwards."
Looking forward, the professor was asked about the risk of mass events such as TRNSMT. He went on to urge those planning to attend to ensure they were vaccinated and not to go if they are sick.
This comes as Edinburgh Live reported the hotspots in Edinburgh were detected in Leith. The top 'hotspot' in the city is The Shore and Constitution Street, with a positivity rate of 486 and 27 positive cases confirmed in the last week.
Sarah Crofts, ONS head of analytical outputs for the Covid-19 infection survey, said: "Across the UK we've seen a continued increase of over half a million infections, likely caused by the growth of BA.4 and BA.5 variants."
She added: "We will continue to monitor the data closely to see if this growth continues in the coming weeks."
Public Health Scotland released the Covid-19 statistical report on Wednesday which highlighted 14,500 reported virus cases last week. That was down slightly on the previous seven days when 15,541 virus cases were reported.
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