NICOLA Sturgeon has said the Scottish Government is looking to pilot a seven-day round-the-clock Covid vaccination programme.

She spoke about the initiative as she took questions from journalists at the daily briefing on the pandemic, where she revealed coronavirus hospital admissions in Scotland may be starting to decline as a result of the lockdown restrictions.

She said: “We have a seven-day programme that will continue to develop as more and larger-scale sites come on stream. We were also having discussions about this on Friday; looking at piloting 24/7 arrangements so that people – particularly when we get into the wider groups of the population – have choices about the time that they turn up for vaccines.”

The First Minister said there is “early evidence” the lockdown measures are working and starting to reduce case numbers, as she announced 752 new cases and four new deaths of Covid patients recorded in Scotland in the previous 24 hours.

It brought the death toll under this measure – of people who first tested positive for the virus within the previous 28 days – to 5709.

The daily test positivity rate was 8.6%, up from 7.4% on Sunday, when 1195 new cases were recorded. There were 2016 people in hospital confirmed to have Covid-19, up six in 24 hours. Of these patients, 151 were in intensive care, a fall of six in the same period.

“We think we may have some cautious grounds for optimism that admissions to hospital are starting to tail off slightly,” she said.

“We are seeing some early evidence that these restrictions are working, which is positive. We think they are starting to reduce case numbers and while it will take a bit of time yet to feed properly into admissions to hospital and ICU, we also hope that we might be starting to see some early positive signs too.”

During the press conference, she insisted Scotland’s vaccination programme is a seven-day-a-week operation after critics pointed to a drop in the number of recorded doses administered on Sunday.

Just 11,364 patients in Scotland received their first dose of a coronavirus vaccine on Sunday, according to the government’s figures – less than half of the 23,371 people who got one on Saturday. A further 155 patients also received their second dose of vaccination, down from the 195 carried out the day before.

It is the lowest number of vaccinations administered since the Scottish Government began publishing daily figures, although last weekend’s data only states that 40,151 were carried out across both Saturday and Sunday combined.

Asked about the drop, the First Minister suggested it could be due to a “lag” in reporting the number of vaccines carried out and that the Scottish Government may trial round-the-clock appointments for the general population.

She acknowledged England had vaccinated a higher proportion of its over-80 population but suggested this was because Scotland was prioritising “more labour-intensive” vaccinations in care homes.

Approximately 95% of over-80s in Scottish care homes had received a vaccination while an estimated 90% of all residents have had at least one dose, she said.

Sturgeon said the rollout of the vaccine to other over-80s was “picking up pace”, with approximately 46% getting a vaccine – up from 34% on Friday.

“That will grow on a daily basis as we work towards the target, which we are – I would say – well on track to meet for the over-80s population,” she said.

Meanwhile, a mass coronavirus vaccination centre is in the final stages of preparation for opening in Aberdeen. The first jabs are due to be given at the P&J Live at TECA stadium from February 1. Project manager Clare Houston said: “The whole vaccination programme will have to adapt according to the supply of vaccine, approval of new vaccines and availability of staff; in this space we will be able to expand our provision without interrupting existing clinics. We have consciously decided to start on a smaller scale to allow us to ‘bed in’ but have the potential to vaccinate many thousands of people each day when operating at full capacity.”