| Good afternoon, Scotland's First Minister has warned that people holding ‘house parties’, as well as a failure to social distance in pubs, could be contributing to the spread of coronavirus, as she said the transmission rate of Covid-19 was estimated to be back above 1 for the first time in three months. At her daily coronavirus briefing, Nicola Sturgeon said that as well as fears about the risks of transmission in pubs and restaurants if people failed to stay two metres apart, there was new concern about “house parties”. The First Minister said she had no specific figures on house parties, but that the concern came from data being collected by the test and protect service which had noted that house parties were where Covid had been likely transmitted. Ms Sturgeon also revealed that the R number – the rate of transmission of Covid – was rising again. While it had been between 0.7 and 1 back in May when she refused to lift the national lockdown, falling to between 0.6 and 0.8 when lockdown easing began, she said new estimates placed it as high as 1.3 last week. Message from the editor While I have your attention, I also have an important request to make of you. With the coronavirus lockdown having a major impact on many of our advertisers - and consequently the revenue we receive - we are more reliant than ever on you taking out a digital subscription. Subscribe to scotsman.com and enjoy unlimited access to Scottish news and information online and on our app. With a digital subscription, you can read more than 5 articles, see fewer ads, enjoy faster load times, and get access to exclusive newsletters and content. Visit https://www.scotsman.com/subscriptions now to sign up. Our journalism costs money and we rely on advertising, print and digital revenues to help to support them. By supporting us, we are able to support you in providing trusted, fact-checked content for this website. Your feedback is really important, please email me with any comments and suggestions at [email protected] Joy Yates Editorial Director JPIMedia Scotland | 