Covid deaths in Scotland pass 6,000 milestone
- Published
More than 515,000 people have now received their first dose of the vaccine in Scotland
More than 6,000 people have now died after testing positive for Covid-19 in Scotland since the pandemic began.
A further 70 deaths have been recorded in the past 24 hours, bringing the total by that measure to 6,040.
However, separate figures released by the National Records of Scotland, external earlier this week showed that the virus has been mentioned on 7,902 death certificates in Scotland.
A total of 177,688 people have now tested positive in Scotland.
The whole of the Western Isles is likely to be moved into level four restrictions later on Friday amid concern over a rise in the number of cases.
But the overall number of people in hospital with the virus across the country has been falling in recent days.
Health Secretary Jeane Freeman told the Scottish government's daily coronavirus briefing that the 6,000 deaths milestone was "another distressing reminder of the toll this virus has taken".
A total of 515,855 people across Scotland had received their first dose of vaccine by Friday morning.
The figures include about 96% of care home residents and 68% of people over the age of 80.
But there have been concerns from GPs and opposition parties that the vaccine roll-out in Scotland has been lagging behind England.
Daily figures released on Friday showed that a further 24,197 people had been vaccinated in Scotland - which was fewer than the 29,566 recorded on Thursday and lower than last week's peak of 25,327.
The Scottish Conservatives said the figures showed that the rollout continued to be "sluggish" in Scotland, and said the government appeared to be pinning its hopes on a "last-minute rush to get mass vaccination centre open".
The Scottish government has insisted that it is on track to meet its target of having vaccinated everyone over the age of 80 by the end of next week, and the over-70s by the middle of February.
Covid in Scotland: Vaccination programme to ramp up from Monday
Ms Freeman said two further mass vaccination centres would open in Aberdeen and Edinburgh on Monday, in addition to the one that is already operating in Glasgow.
The site at the Edinburgh EICC will be able to vaccinate more than 21,000 a week, while the Aberdeen facility at P&J Live will vaccinate about 6,000 people every week.
The Louisa Jordan mass vaccination centre in Glasgow has been operating since 8 December.
It has been carrying out between 1,000 and 5,000 vaccinations daily, and has the capacity to move to 10,000 per day.
The Scottish government's vaccine deployment plan, external, which was published on 14 January, said the mass centres in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen would be "capable of administering in excess of 20,000 vaccinations per week each".
The mass vaccination centre in Glasgow will be joined by similar facilities in Edinburgh and Aberdeen from next week
It also said vaccination facilities with similar capacities would open in Bathgate, Musselburgh and Ravenscraig in Motherwell.
The Scottish government said the Musselburgh site will open on 10 February and Bathgate on 15 February, but no opening date has yet been given for Ravenscraig.
NHS Lothian has told BBC Scotland that the Bathgate and Musselburgh sites will be able to carry out about 14,000 and 8,000 vaccinations per week respectively when they are fully operational.
Smaller vaccination centres are also opening across the country, many of which are located in community facilities such as village halls and sports centres as well as GP surgeries.
'Created confusion'
Scottish Conservative health spokesman Donald Cameron said: "There's no doubt mass centres will give the SNP's rollout a shot in the arm, so to speak, but it remains to be seen if they will still be lagging behind.
"Worryingly, today the health secretary couldn't give many answers about further opening dates and, all on her own, she created confusion about what even constitutes a mass vaccination centre."
Ms Freeman said everyone aged 70 to 79, and extremely clinically vulnerable adults, should receive an invitation letter for a vaccination by the end of this week.
She added: "Subject to supplies, all of them will have received their first dose of the vaccine by mid-February."
The health secretary also said the opening of the mass vaccination centres meant that invitation letters would start going out next week to 65 to 69-year-olds in the Lothian, Grampian and Greater Glasgow and Clyde Health Board areas.
Ms Freeman said planning was "well advanced" in other areas, where letters would be sent out within the next two weeks - although most of those letters are expected to arrive in the coming days.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson met soldiers setting up a vaccination centre in the Castlemilk area of Glasgow on Thursday
She also said it was "no longer tenable" for the Scottish government to hold off on publishing vaccine supply data.
Earlier this month, the government removed its vaccine rollout plan from its website after the UK government raised concerns about the level of detail it gave about how many vaccine doses the UK was due to receive.
The UK government said the information was commercially sensitive and could threaten future supplies of the vaccine.
Ms Freeman apologised to her UK counterpart Matt Hancock at the time, saying she regretted that it had caused "some upset".
However, on Thursday First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said the Scottish government could start publishing details of coronavirus vaccine supplies next week.
Ms Freeman said the UK government had "repeatedly briefed key statistics" about how much vaccine had been allocated and delivered to Scotland.
'A right to clarity'
"So it's not credible for them one day to tell journalists... what these figures are and another day tell us that putting out these figures is a matter of national security," she said.
"That circle really doesn't square. We've held off publication in the past at their request but that's no longer tenable. The public have a right to clarity and we will give them that.
"We're not talking about future supplies, we're talking about known supplies - and I think that's exactly the right thing for us to do."
Meanwhile, Police Scotland issued a record 355 fines last week under the lockdown travel regulations.
The statistics for the week ending 27 January represented a 23% increase on the previous week's total of 288.
The figures were included in the overall total of 604 Covid-related fixed penalty fines.
