NICOLA Sturgeon has reiterated Scotland’s vaccine programme is going “incredibly well” as she rejected claims it is slower than in other parts of the UK.

The First Minister, speaking at a Holyrood coronavirus briefing, was asked why her government’s programme was lagging behind England, Wales and Northern Ireland’s.

But both she and clinical director Jason Leitch rubbished suggestions the Scottish rollout is failing to keep pace.

A reporter from the Sun said recent figures show supplies are “holding up” but daily jag rates have “slowed in the past couple of weeks”. They added that Scotland’s rollout is “a little bit behind other UK nations” when it comes to the proportion of the adult population that have been vaccinated.

Sturgeon replied: “The relative positions will fluctuate on a daily basis, but I don't think it is the case to say we're in any way substantially behind the rest of the UK.”

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The First Minister explained she did not have today’s figures to hand due to an IT glitch, adding: “But certainly in the last few days it is broadly comparable. I think we have been slightly behind Wales, but ahead of England.

“Now there may be days where that looks different but overall the vaccination programme is going exactly as we would have expected.

“In terms of supply, it has never been and never will be that we're not using all the supply we have. We have to balance the supplies to take account of certain things that we need to work through. So over the past few weeks, and we flagged this up some time ago, there has been more of a focus and more of our supply being used to do second doses than first doses and the figures reflect that.

“We've also had a change to the advice on the use of AstraZeneca, for example, which means as we model our way forward we have to look not just at global supplies but at the relative supplies of the different manufacturers so that we are using that for the appropriate age groups."

She continued: “What’s happening is that this vaccination programme is going incredibly well. And, you know, that's down to the really hard work of vaccination teams across the country right now.”

At this point, Leitch intervened to provide the up to date figures. He read off statistics showing Scotland has vaccinated 64% of its adult population with one dose, while England has vaccinated 65%. For second doses, Scotland has vaccinated 32.3% and England has vaccinated 32.7%.

“So, it's a bit of a stretch to suggest we're behind,” the national clinical director commented.

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Having a cheeky dig at her critics, Sturgeon then quipped: “I’m sure the Daily Mail can make something of that, but broadly speaking we're on track.”

Recent figures show a third of UK adults are now fully vaccinated against Covid-19, with a total of 17,669,379 people having received both jabs – the equivalent of 33.5% of all people aged 18 and over.

In Scotland, 2,909,156 people had received the first dose of a Covid-19 vaccination and 1,485,296 have received their second as of yesterday. That’s means more than 33% of the adult population are fully vaccinated.

Overall, more than 53 million vaccine doses have been administered in the UK.