NICOLA Sturgeon is urging people across Scotland to get vaccinated as she received her Covid-19 booster and flu jags in Glasgow today. 

The First Minister did however say that she cannot guarantee that the programme will be free of "glitches" such as people being turned away from appointments. 

Glasgow Times: First Minister Nicola Sturgeon receives her COVID booster vaccine at the vaccination clinic at Glasgow Club Easterhouse in Glasgow from dental nurse Catherine Donnelly. [Photograph by Colin Mearns]First Minister Nicola Sturgeon receives her COVID booster vaccine at the vaccination clinic at Glasgow Club Easterhouse in Glasgow from dental nurse Catherine Donnelly. [Photograph by Colin Mearns]

Ms Sturgeon took to Twitter after receiving her booster and flu jags to thank staff at the vaccination centre in Easterhouse.

Glasgow Times: [Photograph by Colin Mearns][Photograph by Colin Mearns]

A statement reads: "Had my Covid booster and flu jags earlier. Thanks to all @Glasgowclub Easterhouse vaccine centre - and especially vaccinator, Catherine - for making it all painless for me.

"Please make sure you get all your jags as soon as you can."

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The First Minister added that getting vaccinated is "the best thing you can do to protect yourself" and that the booster "really makes a difference."

She said: "Please come forward for your vaccination. It’s the best thing you can do to protect yourself but it is also helping protect around you. 

"If you haven’t had your first or second doses yet, please do that, it is never too late but increasingly our message is to people to get boosted as soon as possible.

"We know that the booster vaccination gives you significant added protection – not just marginal added protection – so it really makes a difference.

"That was important before the emergence of the new variant, it’s even more important now."

Glasgow Times: [Photograph by Colin Mearns][Photograph by Colin Mearns]

It comes as Scotland recorded 14 coronavirus-linked deaths and 1,257 new cases in the last 24 hours. 

The daily test positivity rate was 5.9%, a decrease from Friday's positivity rate of 7.6%.

There were 605 people in hospital yesterday with recently confirmed Covid-19, with 50 patients in intensive care.

One case of the new Omicron variant has also been confirmed during that period, in NHS Grampian.

This takes the total number of people infected with the variant to 30. 

So far, Scottish vaccination figures stand at 4,351,214 people having received their first dose of a Covid-19 vaccination, 3,956,719 people having received their second dose and 1,823,515 having received a third dose or booster. 

The Scottish Government said Public Health Scotland is "aware of a processing issue with UK Government lab tests contributing to lower than expected cases and tests" in the daily figures and investigations are ongoing to resolve the problem. 

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NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has 11 new variant cases, followed by NHS Lanarkshire with nine, five in NHS Forth Valley, three in NHS Highland and two in NHS Grampian. 

Earlier this week Nicola Sturgeon apologised at the Scottish Parliament saying a "very small number" of people had been turned away from their booster appointment as the waiting time for the top-up jags was cut from six months to three. 

She said: "This is a massive programme and we work to minimise any glitches that lead to inconvenience for people but I can’t guarantee that won’t happen.

"What I do know is that this programme is going really well and it’s not down to me or the Government, it’s down the vaccinators that are in clinics like this."

The First Minister said the problems were "a factor of us moving more quickly than other governments" and Scotland is leading the UK on booster jags.

She added: "Yesterday, the Government in England confirmed that they weren’t making this change in the protocol, so if you are three months from your second dose in England right now you still can’t get your vaccine.

"You can in Scotland because we’ve moved more quickly. Yes, that speed meant we had a bit of difficulty as that turned over but that’s the right thing to do."

Ms Sturgeon urged people to be vigilant, get tested, and follow rules around face coverings, ventilation and hygiene. 

She also added that community transmission of the new variant is "reasonably limited" but she does expect cases to rise, perhaps "significantly" in the coming days. 

She said: "Often the difficult thing for decision-makers, although it is the job of people like me, is that we often have to act before the data is telling us that there is a problem because if we wait all the time for the data to tell us there is a problem it can be too late to take the action that is necessary.

"I hope we don’t have to introduce any further protections in addition to those we have in place right now but we can’t rule anything out.

"We saw in Ireland just yesterday significant new restrictions being imposed again.

"We’ve got to operate in a way that is designed to keep people as safe as possible and that’s a duty the Scottish Government takes very seriously so everything has to be kept under review on an ongoing basis."