East Ayrshire currently sits atop the leaderboard for worst-affected council areas when it comes to Covid prevalence.

With the Omicron variant having been confirmed as being present in Ayrshire, cases of Covid in the local authority area have rocketed.

According to data from Public Health Scotland there were 749 Covid cases recorded in the area between November 28-December 4, an increase from 500 cases the previous week. That gives us a seven-day rate per 100,000 of population of 616. By that measure, we’re the worst affected council area.

There has still only been two confirmed cases, so it does not appear that the recent surge is the result of the new mutation.

Yesterday morning, following the closure of a school in Paisley due to an Omicron outbreak, Professor Jason Leitch warned that no venue was safe from closure.

He said: “I’m expecting there to potentially be other location closures before Christmas,” he told BBC Radio Scotland.

“That’s random – it might be a school, might be a call centre, might be my office, might be yours.

“It depends where Omicron appears.”

Nicola Sturgeon, in a Covid briefing yesterday afternoon which coincided with the three-weekly Covid restrictions review, said that there would be no change to the current measures but that the Scottish Government was keeping the possibility of further restrictions under daily review in the wake of surging cases. She did however reiterate the call for employers to make working at home possible for workers.

Covid cases nationwide are on the up, with the First Minister saying that the majority of those cases were among the under 60s, with the over 60s, having recently received a booster jag, seeing a reduction in the number of infections.