THE surge in Covid cases in Scotland is a "cause for concern" but there are currently no plans to reimpose any restrictions, the First Minister has said.

Nicola Sturgeon said there were signs that the recent spike in coronavirus may have passed its peak, and said plans to move into Level Zero Covid restrictions on July 19 and "beyond zero" on August 9 had not changed.

However, she stressed that now is a "critical moment" and urged the public to stick with the coronavirus measures.

It came as cases exceeded 3000 for the second day in a row and the latest modelling by Scottish Government epidemiologists warned that a worst-case scenario could see infections hit 100,000 per week by mid-July.

READ MORE: Scottish Government modellers warn of 100,000 cases a day 'worst case scenario' by mid-July

However, Ms Sturgeon said when infections were tracked by specimen date - when a person submits a swab sample - rather than by the date on which testing labs report a positive result, the cases showed signs of peaking last Tuesday.

"Since then we have seen what appears to be a slowing down of the rate of increase," she said, but stressed that it was still "early days" and the trend is being monitored closely.

Case numbers have doubled to nearly19,600 over the last seven days, compared to 9,227 in the week ending June 22.

Scottish Government modellers said there is "considerable uncertainty" about how infections and hospitalisations will pan out over the coming weeks, but cautioned that their 100,000 a week worst-case scenario forecast was based on "a sustained increase in transmission rate at a level that could have caused the recent increase in cases".

Health Secretary Humza Yousef said ministers "wouldn’t expect to see those numbers and certainly we wouldn’t allow such a situation to arise”.

He added that the recent surge was "skewed disproportionately towards young males, those under 40".

“I think some of the positive cases are linked to watching football indoors,” he added.

The First Minister also stressed that vaccines "will ultimately win" and are already weakening the link between infections and hospital admissions, with just three per cent of cases ending up in hospital.

READ MORE: Scotland overtakes north-west England as UK Covid hotspot

She said: "Fewer people who get Covid-19 now need to go to hospital and a higher proportion of people who do need to go to hospital are not staying in hospital for as long.

"These two factors are obviously helping to cut down the serious illness impact of the virus, but also they are helping to protect the NHS from the full scale of the pressure that case numbers like this would have heaped on it before vaccination."

She added that more than 80 per cent of cases now are being reported in people aged 44 and under, compared to just 2% in those over 65.

More than 98% of people over 60 in Scotland are now fully vaccinated, but 38% of people aged 18 to 39 are still unvaccinated.

Scotland's chief medical officer Dr Gregor Smith also confirmed that the Delta variant is now believed to believed to be behind around 90-95% of cases in Scotland.

The latest infection surveillance data from the Office for National Statistics shows that Scotland has the highest prevalence of Covid in the UK, with an estimated one in 220 people infected compared to one in 440 in England and one in 830 in Wales.

Asked why Scotland's case rate is so much higher, the First Minister said the highly transmissible Delta variant had been "seeded" into England through Bolton which was "relatively small" in an English context, whereas in Scotland it had taken hold and spread in Glasgow initially "which is our biggest city and accounts for a much bigger part of our population".

READ MORE: Case surge 'partly linked to football', says Health Secretary

She also pointed evidence that 69% of adults in England had Covid antibodies in mid-April compared to 59% in Scotland. As vaccination coverage is similar, the difference is largely attributable to Scotland having had lower infection rates in the past.

Dr Smith said: "The lower number of cases that we have seen up to this point means that we've have less people exposed and less people who are immune to the virus. That gives a much greater pool of people that the virus can then infect."