Image source, Getty Images

There is a simple but crucial number at the heart of understanding the threat posed by the coronavirus. It is guiding governments around the world on the actions needed to save lives and to lift lockdown.

It is called the reproduction number, or simply the R value.

What is R?

The reproduction number is a way of rating a disease's ability to spread.

It's the number of people that one infected person will pass the virus on to, on average

Measles has one of the highest numbers in town with a reproduction number of 15 in populations without immunity. It can cause explosive outbreaks.

The new coronavirus, known officially as Sars-CoV-2, has a reproduction number of about three, but estimates vary.

Find out more about the R number here.

BBC Scotland's Fiona Walker asks what Scotland's R number is today and points out that across Scotland some health boards have had no new cases of Covid-19 for at least a week and wonders if it is fair for those to be under the same restrictions as other parts of the country.

Nicola Sturgeon replies that the R number is 0.7-0.9, which compares to 0.7-1 last week, suggesting that "it remains relatively steady, which underlines our caution and care we need to take".

Ms Sturgeon says that progress is still "fragile" and that the number of new cases published every day will always be an under-estimate.

She points out that she has never ruled out regional responses but says she has to recognise that people travel to different parts of the country and take the infection with them.

The first minister calls on people to focus even more so now on what the Scottish government is asking them not to do.

Ms Sturgeon says: "It is by not doing certain things right now that we will all help stop this virus spreading."

She goes on to say, that this weekend will see more traditional Scottish rain and warns: "You cannot and you must not meet people from an other household in doors."

That's a surefire way of spreading the virus, Ms Sturgeon adds.

You can find all the guidance below:

1. Coronavirus (COVID-19) Phase 1: staying at home and away from others (physical distancing), external

This is the guidance for the first phase of easing the lockdown.

2. Scotland’s route map through and out of the crisis, external

The Scottish government has identified four phases for easing the restrictions. We are currently in phase one.

3. Test and Protect, external

If you have Covid-19 symptoms go immediately to NHS Inform online or phone 0800 028 2816 to book a test

4. NHS Inform, external

The latest from NHS Scotland and the Scottish government, including social distancing, face covering and stay at home advice.

Image source, Getty Images

The first minister says she is grateful to all companies in Scotland who have stepped up to help manufacture PPE.

Ms Sturgeon explains the companies are often using innovation to improve the equipment.

Fundamentally the priority must be having adequate stocks of PPE for our health and care workers, she says.

Manufacturing PPE in Scotland brings benefits in terms of jobs and the economy, she adds.

Nicola Sturgeon focuses on fluid-resistant surgical masks and says prior to Covid-19 National Services Scotland would provide about 57,000 of those masks a week.

The first minister points out that now 4.5m a week are needed, an eighty-fold increase.

She explains that to meet that demand 100m fluid-resistant masks have been imported from China, with a further 60m on order.

Work is also under way with suppliers here in Scotland to establish domestic supply chains, for example with the firm Alpha Solway.

The company is due to start making masks in August with 30 new members of staff having been taken on.

The first minister hopes firms in Scotland will be able to meet demand for masks here, the UK and elsewhere in Europe.

This will include gowns, visors and hand-sanitiser.

The first minister says mitigating the economic cost of Covid is going to become a bigger priority in the weeks ahead.

She says more than £2.3bn has been allocated to help businesses through grants and business rates relief.

That's in addition to welcome UK government measures such as the furlough scheme, adds Ms Sturgeon.

Nicola Sturgeon also says the government is publishing a report today that summarises how we are securing PPE for our health and care workers.

She says it also sets out work to create a manufacturing chain for PPE.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon begins her briefing by saying the job losses news at Rolls-Royce in Renfrewshire is devastating.

Rolls-Royce is expected to cut 700 jobs at its plant there as part of job losses across the aero-engine company.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon confirms 15,553 people have now tested positive for Covid-19, an increase of 49 from yesterday.

1,021 patients are in hospital with a suspected or confirmed case (down 96), with 28 being treated in intensive care (down six).

3,758 people have been discharged from hospital after receiving treatment for the virus since 5 March.

A further nine people who tested positive have died, taking the total to 2,395 deaths in Scotland by that measure.

This is the first weekday since March where the number of deaths registered is in single figures, she says.

Image source, AFP

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon will provide an update on Scotland's response to coronavirus shortly.

She is expected to announce the latest estimate of the R-number - the rate of transmission. The various measures which have been introduced since March have been to keep this below one.

Ms Sturgeon will today be joined by Health Secretary Jeane Freeman and interim chief medical officer Dr Gregor Smith.

Mornings with Kaye Adams
BBC Radio Scotland

Image source, PA Media

"The greatest job in the world" is how a Perthshire couple have described being locked down in an 800-year-old, 83-room castle hotel on the edge of the Republic of Ireland's largest lake for the last 10 weeks.

Laura Jamieson and Michael Smith eagerly took up their employers' offer of being the only staff to remain 24 hours per day within Ashford Castle, which featured in the Stephen King horror novel The Shining.

The couple tell BBC Radio Scotland that it has been "quite a daunting task" but "enjoyable" despite much cleaning and sanitising being among their duties.

It has had its perks - including being able to choose a room in the castle's Victorian wing and date nights in the castle's own cinema.

"Food is our most challenging as we are not the most adventurous cooks in the world," explains estate manager Mr Smith. "If we burn beans on toast, the alarm goes off in the whole estate."

Now their task is to help prepare the hotel for a return of guests planned for 20 July - and their own "eviction date" - which is also Ms Jamieson's birthday.

Image source, Ashford Castle

1. Coronavirus (COVID-19) Phase 1: staying at home and away from others (physical distancing), external

This is the guidance for the first phase of easing the lockdown.

2. Scotland’s route map through and out of the crisis, external

The Scottish government has identified four phases for easing the restrictions. We are currently in phase one.

3. Test and Protect, external

If you have Covid-19 symptoms go immediately to NHS Inform online or phone 0800 028 2816 to book a test

4. NHS Inform, external

The latest from NHS Scotland and the Scottish government, including social distancing, face covering and stay at home advice.

Image source, Getty Images

There are "undoubtedly lessons to learn and more work to do" in light of the scale of coronavirus deaths in care homes, Jeane Freeman has said.

It was confirmed on Wednesday that more people have now died with the virus in Scotland's care homes than in hospital.

There has been criticism of the way in which hospital patients were discharged into many homes early in the pandemic.

The health secretary said ministers had "followed the best advice" and taken decisions they "believe to be correct".

• Read more here
• Scottish care home deaths overtake hospital deaths

Holyrood Live
BBC Parliaments

Lib Dem MSP Alex Cole-Hamilton argues there were several international alerts on asymptomatic spread of coronavirus. He asks why the Scottish government chose to "ignore" this and "decant" people to care homes.

"There was and remains dispute in the scientific and health community about asymptomatic transmission," the health secretary tells MSPs. She points to a WHO report suggesting there has been no documented case of it to date.

It was reasonable to expect care homes to be operating to the infection prevention and control manual, Ms Freeman says.

She refutes the suggestion she has ever said testing asymptomatic people had no value, but she adds it is less robust in detecting the presence of the virus than someone who has symptoms.

The health committee draws to a close.

Image source, Reuters

Thousands of homeless people who have been housed during the coronavirus pandemic could return to the streets by the end of June, a charity has warned.

Since the lockdown began, more than 14,500 people who were on the streets or at risk of sleeping rough have been given emergency accommodation.

But Crisis has warned contracts between local councils and hotels are due to end as government funding runs out.

The charity also carried out a survey of 150 charities and organisations in England, Scotland and Wales and found more than half reported a rise in people seeking help during the lockdown.

Read more here.

Holyrood Live
BBC Parliaments

Image source, bbc

Jeane Freeman says no one should be discharged from hospital is they test positive for Covid-19.

Tory MSP Miles Briggs questions the appropriateness for pushing for the reduction of delayed discharge at the start of the pandemic.

The health secretary it was "correct" to discharge a person who no longer clinically needed to be in hospital, because the hospital was "not the safest place" for them to be.

She insists that at the time the government took decisions it would have been expected to take, though accepts as information develops views on this have changed.