UP to 250,000 Scots could be hospitalised with Coronavirus, warns the country's Cheif Medical Officer.

We told how the first Scottish case of the deadly bug was confirmed in Tayside last night.

3 Coronavirus: Nicola Sturgeon is expecting a significant outbreak in Scotland

The First Minister has been speaking on it today, and says while it is only one confirmed case, we should be braced for a "significant outbreak."

The county is currently in the 'contain' phase - the next would be 'delay' which could see major events being cancelled.

And CMO Dr Catherine Calderwood says up to 80 per cent of Scotland's population could catch the bug at its peak - with 20 per cent badly affected and 4 per cent hospitalised.

Sturgeon said: ""We would expect to see further cases confirmed in the days to come."

She added that the Government is "planning for the likelihood of a significant outbreak of coronavirus".

The patient who was diagnosed with the Covid-19 virus is "not seriously ill at this stage", Ms Sturgeon revealed, but is in hospital as a precautionary measure.

3 Coronavirus: There has been one confirmed case in Tayside

3 Coronavirus: 250,000 Scots could be hospitalised Credit: Getty Images - Getty

Scotland's First Minster spoke after taking part in the UK Government's Cobra meeting.

"That is not necessarily going to be the case going forward for future cases," she said, explaining that people will be told to self-isolate "unless there is a clinical need for them to be in hospital".

Speaking at St Andrew's House in Edinburgh alongside Health Secretary Jeane Freeman and Scotland's Chief Medical Officer Dr Catherine Calderwood, she said Scotland was not at the stage of having to cancel major events.

She said: "We are not at that stage yet and decisions about if and when we reach that stage and what the implications will be will be guided very firmly by the scientific advice the four governments are receiving."

She added the Scotland v France Six Nations game is still scheduled to take place in Edinburgh this weekend and there has been no change to plans for the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow later in the year.

Cobra "signed off of a four-nation action plan" to guide the countries' response to the virus and will be published on Tuesday.

She added: "The public should be reassured that there are well-established procedures and protocols in place."

Earlier, Dr Calderwood told the BBC's Good Morning Scotland programme the first person to test positive in Scotland is "clinically well", adding they were "transferred to hospital last night as a precautionary measure only".

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She added: "The public can really help us and we're going to keep saying these messages - wash your hands, don't touch your face, sneeze or cough into a tissue and bin it immediately, and that can still help to contain this so we reduce the number of people it's transmitted to. "

We would expect at least 80% of people to have very mild illness that they will recover quickly from and a very small number of people that need hospitalisation.

"At the moment, this is just precautionary so there's no issue at all with our NHS services or capacity.

"If this does spread throughout Scotland, it will become business as usual. It will become as we have with people with the flu that yes, some people are very ill, some people are less ill, we accept that and people get on with their normal business."

We told how Health Secretary Matt Hancock admitted Coronavirus could shut down entire cities to stop it spreading.

He said the Government would publish doomsday plans this week which could involve "population distancing measures".

Coronavirus will ‘likely’ become widespread across UK ‘fairly soon’, top health official warns

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