An NHS specialist at Scotland's biggest hospital has shared his frustrations as the health service navigates the highest Covid case numbers in Europe.

Kevin Blyth, who works in respiratory medicine, said morale amongst staff was "only beaten" by the levels of staff shortages at Glasgow's Queen Elizabeth University Hospital.

Mr Blyth shared a graph on Twitter, published by the World Health Organisation which shows that Scottish health boards currently occupy seven of the top nine Covid hotspots. The other two, he pointed out, were countries: Israel and Montenegro.

NHS Lanarkshire tops the table with 1056.2 cases per 100,000 people as of September 6, followed by Glasgow at 1011.2.

Israel is next, but considerably lower at 771.5 cases, followed by NHS Fife at 694.1.

He urged the public to do their bit to assist NHS staff by getting vaccinated, wearing a mask and "being kind".

The Herald:

Responding to the tweet a spokesman for NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said: "Our teams are working exceptionally hard to treat our patients effectively and safely and we want to thank them for their continuing commitment to our patients, their families and their colleagues during this unprecedented time.

READ MORE: How Scotland compares to rest of UK in vaccine roll-out 

"We continue to prioritise emergency, trauma and cancer care alongside the increasing COVID admissions.

"We recognise the strain this has put on both staff and services and will support both as much as possible."

Nicola Sturgeon will give another Covid update on Wednesday to Parliament as cases in Scotland continue to rise. 

Scotland reported over 7,000 cases on Monday, with the R number estimated between 1.3 and 1.6. 

During last week's update, the first minister urged people to comply with the measures still in place, as well as proposing the use of vaccine passports for certain events from the end of September. 

MSPs are due to vote on this on Thursday, with Labour, the Conservatives and LibDems expected to vote against the measure.