Nicola Sturgeon has cut the time people with Covid need to isolate for in her latest update.

The First Minister reduced the self-isolation time from 10 days down to seven, with two consecutive daily negative lateral flow tests, the same as in England.

She said while the cases of the omicron variant of Covid-19 are still rising, there would be no more restrictions imposed at the moment but the other existing rules still apply.

The next legal review of the Coronavirus restrictions is in two weeks time but she said the situation will be kept under review.

The Scottish Government had been urged to reduce the isolation time in line with England to ease the staffing crisis faced by the NHS, other public services and businesses.

Sturgeon confirmed changes and said for those who test positive for covid the rule is still ten days.

She said, however: "There will be an option to end isolation after seven days if you have no fever and record two negative lateral flow tests after day six."

Household contacts who are fully vaccinated with the booster dose will not need to self isolate if they have no symptoms.

The requirement will instead be to take a lateral flow test every day for seven days.

Also, in another change, there is no requirement to take a PCR test after a positive lateral flow test.

Instead, people should begin to self-isolate and report the positive test to allow contact tracing to take place.

The changes take effect from midnight tonight.

The First Minister said work was underway to understand the impact of hospitalisations with the new omicron variant.

She said: "It is having a considerable impact, putting additional pressure on the NHS."

Sturgeon said there were three fronts putting a strain on the NHS, including non-covid backlogs built up over the pandemic and  NHS staff absent or self-isolating, which she said has led to a "depleted and ever more exhausted workforce".

And she added: "Even with a lower rate of hospitalisation, the sheer volume is leading to more patients with covid ending up in hospital."

She said one in 40 people in Scotland had covid earlier in December but by the week to 31 December that had risen to one in 20.

She said the rules on large gatherings, distancing in indoor places and table service in hospitality will remain in force and she expected that to be the case until at least January 17.

She added: "I strongly advise the general public to limit contact to maximum of three households."

The latest statistics showed there were 16,103 new cases of covid 19.

There were 1223 people in hospital with the virus, up by 71 but 544 more than last week and there were 42 patients in intensive care, the same as yesterday.

There were 5 new deaths taking the total to 9872.

Who needs to self-isolate in Scotland?

Glasgow Times: