NICOLA Sturgeon appeared to tell Ruth Davidson to “keep it down” during a debate on Covid-19 restrictions at Holyrood this afternoon.

As Sturgeon responded to a question on the impact of ports chaos on Scottish food and drink producers, she could be seen glancing to her left towards the Scottish Tory Holyrood group leader in frustration.

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Davidson cannot be heard by viewers at home but the First Minister then looks toward her seat and says: “Do you want to maybe keep it down?”

The presiding officer then moved to a question from Labour MSP Jackie Baillie.

MSPs had a chance this afternoon to ask the First Minister about plans to move mainland Scotland into level 4 restrictions, and Orkney, Shetland and Western Isles into level 3, from Saturday.

It comes after scientists revealed they believe a new variant strain of Covid-19, which is prevalent in the south and east of England but has been found across the UK, could be 70% more transmissible than the original strain.

On Saturday the Prime Minister and First Minister announced tough new measures aimed at suppressing the strain.

This afternoon Sturgeon spoke on strengthening existing level 4 restrictions, after Covid-19 cases rose by 15% in the past fortnight.

She said: “It seems that we are facing a virus that spreads much faster now than in March, so we need to consider whether the current Level 4 restrictions will be sufficient to suppress it.”

As part of this, plans to resume in-class teaching for all pupils by January 18 will be kept under review.

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Further changes to this level include homeware shop and garden centres being restricted to click and collect opening.

Giving a further update on the daily coronavirus statistics, Sturgeon said the death toll of people who first tested positive for the virus within the previous 28 days is now 4326.

The daily test positivity rate is 7.5%, up from 6% on Monday and the number of people who have tested positive since the start of the pandemic is 114,366.

There are 1045 people in hospital confirmed to have the virus, a fall of 33 in 24 hours. Of these patients, 60 are in intensive care, down by one.