NICOLA Sturgeon has said she cannot rule out a second national lockdown this winter after a trebling of Covid cases in Scotland over the past three weeks.

The First Minister said it “would not be credible” to discount a return to the severe lockdown seen at the start of the pandemic this spring.

She also warned the number of people allowed to meet indoors could be restricted again when she updates Holyrood on lockdown measures tomorrow.

Ms Sturgeon was speaking after announcing another 159 new Covid cases overnight, and highlighting a marked increase in the rolling average for new cases.

She told the daily briefing Scotland was at a “very dangerous point", with a “very definite increase” in case numbers, but not yet uncontrolled spread of the virus.

She said: “We’re sounding the alarm bells at this stage to avoid it accelerating.” 

Asked if she thought a second national lockdown was more likely than not this winter, she declined to give an answer in case it caused fatalism.

She said: “That starts to sound inevitable, that starts to sound as if there’s nothing we can do to avoid that, and I don’t want anybody to get that message.

“That said, I’m equally not going to stand here and say there’s no possibility of that, because that would not be credible.

“The message I’m trying to get across on that aspect is that we all have a part to play in trying to avoid getting to that.

“Government’s a big part to play, principally though not exclusively through the Test and Protect system to try to keep this virus suppressed.

“But all of us have a part to play in our daily behaviours in trying to stop it spreading in the first place.

“I want people to focus on that, and I want government to focus on what we’ve got to do, rather than allow ourselves to slip into the mindset of a second wave and another national lockdown is somehow inevitable.”

Asked to expand on her comment about Scotland being at a very dangerous point, the First Minister said: “If you look at our daily case numbers just now, on average for the past seven days it’s been 155 [cases per day]. Three weeks ago that was 52 [cases per day].

“So over that three week period you can  see that our average daily case number has trebled, and if you look at our daily cases on a number of levels you would probably see a doubling every couple of weeks just now.

“What that say - this is also the situation we’ve seen in countries such as France and Spain - is we have a very definite increase just now, but it’s not at the same rate as it was back in march and April.

“There were periods when we went into lockdown where it was doubling every two to three days. We’re not at that rate of growth right now. We’re probably more at the two-week doubling.

“But that can change quickly. It can start to multiply quite quickly, which is why we’re sounding the alarm bells at this stage to avoid it accelerating more quickly than that.”