The executive director of education at Glasgow City Council, Maureen McKenna, told Good Morning Scotland she was happy with the advice coming from government on keeping schools open.

She said it was an "exceptionally difficult" situation and there were no right answers.

"I'm not a scientist, I'm not a medical practitioner, I have to follow the advice that government and public health are providing," she said.

Ms McKenna said school attendance levels were low and she could understand why.

She said the "anxiety" levels among pupils and staff were high.

A GP and mother who is expecting another child has spoken about the difficulties of self-isolating due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Dr Punam Krishan, from Glasgow, was reacting after the UK government's chief medical adviser Prof Chris Whitty said pregnant women were among a group of people who should take "particular care to minimise their social contact".

Laura Maxwell on BBC Scotland's Good Morning Scotland programme asks Ms Sturgeon if she thinks the message is getting across to people well enough without scaring them too much and she says she is.

"What are you not telling us?", Laura asks.

"I'm not not telling you anything," the first minister says.

"Of course if I came on here and tried to get into every detail of information I'm looking at on NHS preparedness then I would overload you and we would not have time to do it," she said.

"I am not keeping anything back and I will not be keeping anything back.It is really important to give a balance of information and to try to inform people without scaring people."

Ms Sturgeon added: "An assurance I can give to people is that I will be as open, frank and transparent as possible."

She warned people on social media to be "wary" of sources that they did not know and trust.

She cited NHS inform, external as a good place for information.

Ms Sturgeon, who used to be Scotland's health secretary, said she was "in awe of the work our NHS and social care staff do on a daily basis".

She said they were under incredible pressure, especially NHS 24.

"That is going to grow over the weeks ahead and all of us owe such a huge debt of gratitude to them."

The first minister said: "We will be testing key workers in Scotland so that we are not having people, particularly in parts of our front line health service, unnecessarily self-isolating at home."

Ms Sturgeon said there were plans to use students who were "at an advanced level" in their studies to help deliver health care.

Ms Sturgeon said the number of intensive care unit (ICU) ventilators would increase to a minimum of 700 "over the next few weeks". She said this would be done by freeing up existing capacity and machines already on order.

She said they would also try to divert manufacturing supply over and above that but she said she could not get a "definitive answer" on this yet as these plans were still being worked on.

Asked about why people should follow the latest government advice, Ms Sturgeon replied: "You are protecting yourself, you are protecting others and you are also crucially helping us to protect the ability of our national health service to provide the care and treatment for people who need it.

"The responsibility is on all of us to follow the advice and do the right thing."

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said: "We are working right now to a plan to double intensive care capacity, as a starting point, as a minimum."

She said there were currently about 360 ICU ventilators in Scotland.

The first minister said capacity would be partly increased by taking equipment from high-dependency units and moving to intensive care.

But she was also seeking to increase the number of ventilators.

Ms Sturgeon said the NHS would be postponing non-urgent elective treatment in order to free up capacity.

As of 16 March, there were 171 positive cases of Covid-19 in Scotland following 4,240 tests. So far, one patient north of the border has died.

The number of new cases in the UK and Scotland is expected to rise sharply in the next four weeks and then peak in June.

Ms Sturgeon said she has "enormous sympathy" for businesses affected by the latest advice.

"We right now do not have the powers to order premises to close," she added.

She said emergency legislation going through Westminster would deliver some of those powers.

The first minister tries to address the "apparent contradiction".

She said this was preferable to them gathering in more informal settings.

"That is a position that we will continue to consider," she said. "It is not a closed book."

She said the Scottish government would be considering this over the course of today and the following days.

Asked why the advice has changed, Ms Strugeon said: "The speed and extent of the spread of the virus is beyond what was previously anticipated.

"That's particularly true right now in London but all of us are on the cusp of a rapid acceleration."

She denied that previous tactics were wrong, saying that "getting the timing right" was important for maximum impact.

Ms Sturgeon said people who were in a household where one person had symptoms of the virus to stay at home for 14 days.

She went on to give wider advice to the general public.

"Don't go to the pub, and the theatre and the cinema the way you would normally do," she said.

"Avoid unnecessary travel, stay at home more than you would normally do - that's advice to the general public but that advice is particularly strong for people over 70 and for people who have underlying health conditions.. and for pregnant women."

Nicola Sturgeon tells the BBC:: "We are living in an unprecendented situation.

"It's an anxious time for everybody."

She said the purpose of the new advice was to delay the spread of the virus, to protect the ability of the NHS to provide treatment for those who need it, and to save lives.

At a press conference on Monday, Nicola Sturgeon said the UK was "on the cusp" of a rapid acceleration in Covid-19 cases, with numbers likely to double every few days.

New measures announced on Monday include:

• Stop all non-essential social contact and stop going to places with a high concentration of people such as pubs or cinemas
• Avoid using public transport as much as possible
• Avoiding all social contact is particularly important for people over 70, for pregnant women and for those with some health conditions
• Work from home if you can
• Anyone living in a household with somebody who has either a persistent cough or fever must now also isolate themselves for 14 days
• Very vulnerable people with compromised immune systems - estimated to be around 200,000 in Scotland - will be given tailored advice on self-isolation that could last a "period of weeks or months"

Welcome to BBC Scotland's coverage of the coronavirus developments on Tuesday 17 March 2020.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is due to speak on BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland programme shortly after 08:00.

It comes after she warned yesterday that life will change "significantly" in Scotland due to stringent new coronavirus measures.