Nicola Sturgeon has said people should defer work Christmas parties, after Public Health Scotland officials issued their advice last night.

She said Scotland faces a "tsunami of infections".

While not a legal requirement yet, the First Minister said she agreed with the advice and asked people to think carefully about parties.

After setting out the rising threat of the omicron variant, Sturgeon said: "Public Health Scotland said people should think about deferring work Christmas parties.

"There is a significant risk with omicron.

"If these are work events there's a risk to workplaces being able to operate.

"I have no alternative but to agree with the advice.

"We should all think a bit more carefully about contact and it would be sensible to defer work Christmas parties.

"We can't rule out further measures and can't avoid the advice I have shared with you today."

She also announced new rules on self-isolation.

From tomorrow all household contacts of a positive case should isolate for 10 days even if they get a negative PCR test.

Non-household contacts should isolate pending a PCR test result.

Sturgeon added: "The purpose is to level with you what we know so far about the new omicron variant.

"The fact is we do face a renewed, and very severe challenge.

"Because of the new faster transmisibility we may be facing a potential tsunami of infections.

"That is broadly reflected in the rest of the UK as well."

Sturgeon said it was not a case of "if" we are facing a surge in cases but "when".

She said: "We expect to see a rapid rise in cases in the days and weeks ahead."

"It is still not known if omicron causes more serious illness than Delta.

"Even if it's a little bit less severe, we hope it will be, but for some it will cause hospitalisation and some people will die."

She said: "Even a smaller percentage of a larger number of cases will still result in a massive number of people getting seriously ill."

Omicron is an immensely concerning development."

She said she didn't want to scare people but said there might be "difficult decisions in the days to come."

She added:"We are considering the next steps very carefully."

Sturgeon said she was aware of the economic and financial impact of decisions but said not acting will also have a financial impact.

Latest statistics

There were 5018 new positive recorded cases yesterday.

Sturgeon said: "It is one day's figures but it's a sharp rise from the average of 2800 a day recently. It underlines our fear a new wave is starting."

There were 573 people in hospital, 5 fewer, and 40 patients in intensive care, 1 more.

There were 19 deaths, taking the total to 9707.

Vaccination programme

There are now 4,358,725 people who have had a first dose.

And the booster dose has now passed 2m people.

Omicron

There are 110 confirmed cases.

Ten days ago it was 9 cases.

Sturgeon said: "Confirmed cases represent the tip of the iceberg and are not the true indicator."