One Million vaccines milestone expected for Scotland this week

Scotland is expected to have given out one million Covid vaccines by the end of this week.

Figures show less than 150,000 vaccines to go in order to hit that milestone, just under 300,000 people received their jag last week.

Saturday saw a record 52,839 vaccinations in one day. The weekend overall had around 80,000 jags administered, more than double the last weekend.

"A scale of uptake which none of us believed would be possible" said the First Minister.

99.6% of residents in older care homes have had their first jag, 95% of over 80's living in the community have had their first dose, meanwhile the figures are 67% of people in the 75-79 age range and 29% 70-75.

Five more people who had previously tested positive for the virus have died in the last 24 hours.

Another 928 people have tested positive for Covid - that's 6.6% of those tested.

There are 1,672 coronavirus cases in Scottish hospitals, that's down by 38, while there is no change in the 108 people in the ICU.

The First Minister also commented that there are now 5 confirmed and one probable cases of the South African variant of the virus in Scotland.

She mentions these are all thought to be linked to travel.

Scotland's vaccination programme "undoubtedly picked up pace considerably over the course of the last week'', Nicola Sturgeon said.

But she warned that the first dose of a vaccine does not begin to have a protective effect until around two or three weeks after it is received.

She said we "don't yet know that the vaccine will stop you from getting Covid or transmitting it to someone else, although there is growing evidence that vaccination does have some impact on transmission''.

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