Jamie Dawson KC asks if Calderwood's resignation was a "cataclysmic event" and also had "an enormous effect on public confidence in the government strategy".

Nicola Sturgeon replies: "I don't believe it did either."

She suggests the evidence through public attitudes and public polling showed it did not have that effect.

"It did have a disruptive effect, but it was one we were able to overcome quickly."

Dr Gregor Smith was able to step up and do a very good job, she adds.

Sturgeon compares Calderwood saga to Dominic Cummingspublished at 14:16 Greenwich Mean Time 31 January

14:16 GMT 31 January

Kirsten Campbell
BBC Scotland political correspondent

Nicola Sturgeon didn't want to lose her chief medical officer when she broke the rules by visiting her second home in the early stages of the pandemic.

But within 24 hours she came to the conclusion that public trust would be damaged if Dr Catherine Calderwood remained in post.

Sturgeon said by the time she spoke to her on the evening that a newspaper story revealing the breach first surfaced, they both agreed that resignation was inevitable.

Her slightly pointed remark that it "stands in contrast to other incidents" appears to be a reference to Boris Johnson's defence of Dominic Cummings when he broke Covid rules.

Sturgeon's still being asked about the resignation of former Chief Medical Officer for Scotland, Dr Catherine Calderwood. She says that she found the "whole circumstance... upsetting".

She acknowledges that other advisers may have felt trying to keep Calderwood in her role showed some kind of preference for her - but she says this wasn't the case.

She respected all her advisers equally, she adds.

Asked if that episode undermined her relationship with those other advisers, Sturgeon says that in her experience it didn't.

Sturgeon is being asked more questions about the resignation of Dr Catherine Calderwood.

"Did you tell her to resign?" asks Dawson.

Sturgeon says she didn't appoint the chief medical officer so couldn't have made her resign but both agreed it was inevitable.

Image source, Getty Images

The inquiry turns to hear about the resignation of Dr Catherine Calderwood after it was discovered she broke lockdown rules.

Jamie Dawson KC asks whether there were attempts to retain Calderwood, despite the newspaper report.

Sturgeon says: "As I do for all aspects of the Covid response in particular this one, I take absolute responsibility."

The former first minister explains she understood there would be immediate public anger about this and that it would have to be addressed by an apology from Calderwood. She also acknowledges the rules applied to her as they did to anyone else.

She adds that Calderwood was "a very key part" in government decision-making and acting as a clinical adviser to the first minister.

Despite her wish to retain the chief medical officer however, Sturgeon says she understood that doing so would "seriously compromise trust in the governments message" which led to Calderwood's resignation.

Sturgeon is continuing to defend some of the officials she worked with during the pandemic (laid out in our last post), after the inquiry lawyer points out they weren't trained in respiratory diseases.

She says she had a "high degree of confidence" in the Scottish medical experts that she took advice from in relation to Covid.

That turned out to be justified, she adds.

The former Scottish leader later says she never doubted the advice she was being given, or felt it wasn't up to scratch.

Jamie Dawson KC gets proceedings under way again and points out three principle government medical advisers, Dr Catherine Calderwood, Professor Sir Gregor Smith and Professor Jason Leich did not have training in virology, epidemiology or respiratory medicine.

The former first minister explains that they had varying degrees of experience in public health, for example Professor Leitch had qualifications in public health.

Sturgeon also adds that she wasn't involved with their appointment.

The inquiry is back from lunch and Jamie Dawson KC continues to quiz Nicola Sturgeon.

Stay with us as we bring you the latest.

The Covid inquiry will be resuming in the next few minutes - here's a quick recap of what we've learnt so far today:

• An emotional Nicola Sturgeon fought back tears as she gave evidence, saying she had tried to be the best first minister she could be
• She denied that there was an approach of secrecy during Covid and said that an early lack of testing did not reflect a lack of urgency felt by the government
• Sturgeon said that during some of the early days of the pandemic, she felt "fear" and at times was "overwhelmed by the scale" of what she had to deal with
• She also said Boris Johnson was the wrong person "full stop" to be prime minister of the UK
• First thing this morning, the inquiry focused on the way Sturgeon and her cabinet used WhatsApp and other messaging platforms to conduct government business - Sturgeon insisted messaging was never a part of official government decision-making, but admitted to deleting some messages
• She also told the hearing that she thought about some of the decisions she had had to make during the pandemic "every day"

Inquiry gets insight into the pressures Sturgeon felt during Covidpublished at 13:28 Greenwich Mean Time 31 January

13:28 GMT 31 January

Kirsten Campbell
BBC Scotland political correspondent

It's rare for Nicola Sturgeon to lose her composure in public. The emotion on display gives a real insight into the pressures she felt and still feels about the Covid pandemic.

She admits to feeling a bit overwhelmed when the pandemic hit. The tears began to flow when she confessed that there had been times she wished she hadn’t been first minister at that stage.

I believe she feels insulted by the suggestion that she viewed the pandemic as a political opportunity, when she says she saw it as a threat, a risk, a catastrophe.

Earlier in the hearing when she was shown a message exchange in which she described restrictions on hospitality opening times as "all so random", she admitted she hadn't been comfortable about that "crisis in decision-making" being in the public domain and tried to put it in the context of being tired, having not had a day off in months.

She insists she was just doing her job, but there is a sense that she wonders if her critics have given her enough credit for how challenging a job it was.

In those last few seconds before the inquiry paused for lunch, Sturgeon acknowledged that not all the difficult decisions made by the Scottish government were always right.

She'd just been talking about allowing sports matches and large conferences to go ahead in the early days of the pandemic.

"These decisions were matters of judgement for the best possible reasons," she said. "We absolutely didn't get them all right."

But she added that they were always "taken in good faith for the best possible reasons".

As we've said, the inquiry is now on a lunch break until 13:45. Before it resumes, we'll bring you a round-up of what we've learnt so far and some afternoon analysis.

Following that question about a Nike conference, held in Edinburgh in 2020, and why matters weren't communicated to the public, Sturgeon denied having an early approach of secrecy when it came to Covid.

There were judgements and decisions that had to be made constantly and the government was trying to "reach the best decision they could," she said.

If some of the decisions were not what they should have been, Sturgeon told the inquiry before lunch, it doesn't mean that those were reached with the motivation of secrecy. She added:

Just before the break, Sturgeon was also asked about a Nike conference that took place in Edinburgh in February 2020. It was reported to Health Protection Scotland on 2 March, the day after Scotland's first confirmed case of the virus was announced.

The inquiry lawyer asks Sturgeon if it was on former chief medical officer Dr Catherine Calderwood's advice that these matters were not communicated to the public.

Sturgeon explains that in the case of the Nike conference, she did take advice from Dr Calderwood - and says with hindsight she doesn't think the advice was unreasonable.

"The issue became that we put into the public domain ... that the second case [of Covid] had been associated with that conference," she explains.

"There were 71 people at that conference, only 10 of them were from Scotland and there was a concern in the advice put to me from Dr Calderwood that to say this was somebody from that conference would have risked identifying that person because of the small numbers involved."

The inquiry's having a lunch break now, and will resume at 13:45. Just before that, Nicola Sturgeon was being asked about Covid testing - here's a bit more of what she said.

She acknowledged that, moving forwards, a certain level of contact tracing infrastructure should be kept in place outside pandemic periods.

That comes at a financial cost, she said, adding that it's better than a human cost which is the "worst of all".

Sturgeon also reminded the inquiry that testing had its limitations. She said she wasn't arguing against the importance of it but that there was a risk of false negatives.

"We've got to be careful we don't blind ourselves to the limitations of testing," she said.

Here's the moment from earlier when former Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon got visibly upset talking about her time in office during the pandemic.

She said there was a "large part" of her that still wishes she hadn't been Scotland's leader at the time.

Watch it in full below:

We're now hearing about Scotland's Covid testing capacity during the pandemic. Nicola Sturgeon says it was established "very quickly" - that Scotland went from having no testing capacity to building their own test centres in a very short period of time.

The inquiry lawyer reminds Sturgeon that former Scottish Health Secretary Jeane Freeman has said on the record that Scotland still only had capacity for 350 tests a day until April 2020.

Asked if that indicates a lack of urgency in Scotland's response, Sturgeon says it's more reflective of the capacity the country had in place and the speed at which testing could be scaled up.

Testing facilities that had been available pre-pandemic were in multiple small labs, she explains, and there was a need to recruit, which wasn't easy to do. There was also intense supply chain pressure, Sturgeon adds.

Sturgeon's past experience as health secretarypublished at 12:44 Greenwich Mean Time 31 January

12:44 GMT 31 January

Lisa Summers
BBC Scotland health correspondent

As we've just been hearing, Nicola Sturgeon is not only a former first minister but also former health secretary.

At the height of the Covid pandemic, she was widely praised for her daily briefings and communication style - but it wasn’t a strategy that developed overnight.

Sturgeon was health secretary for more than five years, during which time the world experienced another pandemic - swine flu, in 2009.

She chose then to hold regular press conferences, flanked by Harry Burns, who was chief medical officer. At the time she talked of putting meticulous pandemic planning into practice.

So one question for the inquiry to consider is: did Sturgeon learn more than communication style from that experience? Did the government pay attention to recommendations at the time for a testing infrastructure that would quickly identify cases? What plans were put in place to protect vulnerable groups?

Similar criticisms of complacency have been measured at the UK government. But the question here is: did Nicola Sturgeon with her vast health experience, learn enough and do enough within her powers to protect Scotland from the virus?

Image source, PA Media

Moving on, inquiry lawyer Jamie Dawson KC asks Sturgeon about her previous experience as health secretary during the swine flu pandemic in 2009.

Asked how this influenced her decision making in the early days of Covid, Sturgeon admits this is something she has "asked myself often"

"It was definitely there, I learned things," she says - but she insists the advice she received was different in each case.

Sturgeon says she doesn't recall any advice in the early stages of Covid suggesting she need not worry and "it would just be mild" like she did with swine flu. She also recalls hearing projections of what could happen with Covid, which she says she found "terrifying"

An emotional Sturgeon continues to answer a question about her suitability to be FM during Covid.

She says during some of the early days of the pandemic, she felt "fear" and at times "overwhelmed by the scale of what we were dealing with".

"Perhaps, more than anything, I felt an overwhelming responsibility to do the best I could," she tells the inquiry.

She also says that suggestions she saw or used the health crisis as some kind of political opportunity are untrue.

Following that last question about Boris Johnson's suitability to be prime minister during Covid, Sturgeon's now asked about her own suitability.

"I was the first minister when the pandemic struck and part of me wishes I hadn’t been," she says, before becoming visibly upset.

She says she wanted to be the best FM she could be.

"It is for others to judge if I succeeded," she says, with a slightly shaky voice.