Omicron continues to spread throughout Scotland - with daily Covid infection numbers remaining in the tens of thousands. The Scottish Government today recorded 11,827 new Covid cases in the last 24 hours, with the number of people currently in hospital requiring treatment after a positive test now more than 1,400.
It has been said that the highly transmissible Omicron accounts for more than 80 per cent of all coronavirus cases in Scotland.
Scientists are continuing to research the potential impacts that the variant could have on Scots and the general health crisis.
Omicron is not the first variant to have caused concern among the global scientific community - there have been a number of others that have come before it.