A health expert has said that "Omicron is not finished with us yet" as Covid-19 cases begin to rise again.

The Scottish Government's deputy national clinical director John Harden warned that we may see a return of more regular testing if cases were to continue to increase further.

He was speaking on BBC's Radio Scotland after Jason Leitch tested positive for Covid-19 and warned that cases are on the rise in both Scotland and across the globe.

The most recent figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimated that one in 30 Scots had the virus in the week ending June 10.

New subvariants of Omicron, BA.4 and BA.5, are leading the spike having overtaken BA.2 which was behind the latest wave.

Mr Harden said the most recent increase is "not unexpected" as more people mix over the summer. 

"There's a balance to be struck between having a testing infrastructure that is telling you what granularity is, but actually, you quite often don't need that to give people advice and guidance as long as people are following that advice and guidance," he said

"But if case numbers were to go up then we may need to go back to testing regularly."

Advice to test twice a week ended in April after the Scottish Government could no longer provide free tests for all Scots.

READ MORE: Scotland Covid cases up 43 per cent in a week as BA.4 and BA.5 now dominant in UK

While the clinician did not think Scotland was in a new wave "just yet", he said it can be difficult to tell before it is in full swing.

He said: "I think we may well be heading in that direction but the difficulty with these waves is that normally you only know you're in a wave during it, so to speak, and it is quite obvious.

"At the moment we've got a bit of an increase in cases which we are tracking very closely. 

“Time will tell if we are in a wave when we look back, it's very hard to say. The case rate is nowhere near where it has been in previous waves so I am a bit on the fence at the moment.

Mr Harden urged the most vulnerable groups to get their latest Covid-19 jag available to them.

"I think we really, really need people to get their boosters as much as possible. And I think by the fact that the case numbers are going up, Omicron is not finished with us yet. The virus hasn't finished with us yet.

"This is not an unexpected increase in cases as people mix more in the summer and go about their general activities in the summer. So, I would strongly encourage people to get their boosters."

A virologist urged people to take on some of the previous advice to break the transmission of Covid.

Dr Naomi Forreter-Soto, a virologist at Keele University, said: "Rising numbers of Covid are never a good thing so I think there is some concern. But it is happening in the summer when more things can happen outside, so that does reduce the potential for transmission. I think it is just whether or not people are ready to take the necessary measures to help reduce transmission. 

"Hand hygiene, wearing masks indoors, doing more of the precautions we were taking before.

“We don't really know how these new variants are going to interact with our population.

"We are seeing more cases and quite a substantial rise in cases so everyone needs to be aware of the possibility of getting infected again.