Nicola Sturgeon said plans are being worked on for a "slight and careful easing" of Covid restrictions for a few days over Christmas.

The First Minister said talks were takling place with the UK ,Welsh and Northern Irish  governments and they were "Making progress towards a common position acorss the UK".

However, despite reports of bubbles and possible numbers of households, Ms Sturgeon said: "Details are still to be finalised. We hope to confirm later in the week."

Despite speculation she urged people to to "wait until we have reached that final conclusion".

Ms Sturgeon said: "This is a particulary difficult balance to strike. Public opinion is quite mixed. There is an obvious desire to see loved ones but also a lot of anxiety about the potential risks."

She added: "We are trying to reach a sensible balance."

The First Minister said: "It is posible, likely, that households can form larger bubbles over Christmas, isolation and lonliness for people is harder over Christmas.

However she added: "We can't ignore that any relaxation carries aditional risk. The virus won't take Christmas off.  We could be within weeks of being able to vaccinate, we need to be sensible and careful."

The total number of new positive cases in last 24 hours was 949, and 370 were in Greater Glasgow and 190 Lanarkshire.

There were 1208 in hopsital across Scotland,up by 38 and 84 were in intensive care, down by 11. 

There were no deaths registered in the last 24 hours.