NICOLA Sturgeon has accused the UK Government of having a “hissy fit” after Scotland published details of its vaccine supply.

The First Minister was speaking in Holyrood this afternoon after announcing the extension of the lockdown in Scotland until at least mid-February.

Sturgeon said there were “cautious grounds for optimism” but warned: “Any relaxation of lockdown while case numbers, even though they might be declining, nevertheless remain very high, could quickly send the situation into reverse.”

She also gave details of the vaccine roll-out, saying Scotland is “now vaccinating approximately 100,000 people a week”, and that “that number will increase progressively from here”.

After the statement, the first MSP to question the First Minister was Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Conservative group leader.

Davidson raised concerns around the speed of the Covid vaccine roll-out, saying that Scotland had taken receipt of 717,000 doses but more than 400,000 have yet to reach patients. She said that “people across Scotland are anxious to know when they will be called” to receive the coronavirus vaccine.

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The former Scots Tory leader raised the concerns of some constituents who are aged over-80 who had not yet been contacted about vaccinations and asked “where the hold-up is”.

In reply, the First Minister said that care home residents, and not over-80s, had been the higher priority. She stressed that all over-80s would be vaccinated before the start of February.

As such, she said, “in Scotland more than 90% of care home residents have been vaccinated, which is a higher percentage by some considerable percentage than the position in England where comparisons are being made”.

Sturgeon rebuffed the claim that Scotland is “behind its targets” for the vaccine roll-out, saying that although it is dependent on supplies, “we are on track to be vaccinating 400,000 people a week by the end of February”.

Responding to Davidson, the First Minister went on: “On supplies, and I want to be quite blunt and perhaps brutally so here Presiding Officer. We last week published detailed estimates of supply, now and well into the future.

“We put that out on a document that went on the web and was circulated. I hope I’m not about to use unparliamentary language but the UK Government had something of what I can only describe as a hissy fit about us doing that.

“So, we agreed in consultation with them to take away the publication of those supply figures. They don’t want us to be open about supply for reasons of commercial confidentiality.”

READ MORE: Are the SNP 'too slow' on Covid vaccine rollout compared to England?

The UK Government asked the Scottish Government to stop publishing the details of vaccine supply last week, citing concerns that other countries would try to outbid the UK for its vaccines if they knew how much it had.

Sturgeon went on: “Even though I don’t necessarily entirely agree with the reasoning behind that, we have agreed with their request.

“And yet, what we have is the UK Government briefing and spinning misleading figures on supply, so they have to be clear about which approach they want us to take.”

You can watch Sturgeon’s full reply to Davidson below: