More than half of care home residents receive first dose of vaccine

More than half of care home residents in Scotland have had their first dose of the vaccine, the First Minister has said. 

The programme for vaccinating all people over the age of 80 against coronavirus has also begun, it was confirmed. 

Nicola Sturgeon provided an update on the vaccination programme at the lunchtime briefing, where she said 113,459 individuals had received the first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech jab by Sunday. 

The rollout of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, the second to be approved in the UK, began in Scotland on Monday. 

Sturgeon said: "I am able to confirm today that we are now well over halfway through vaccinating care home residents with their first dose of the vaccine. That is extremely important. 

"As you've just heard, more than a third of people who died with COVID last week, died in our care homes and we very much hope that the vaccine will very soon start to significantly reduce the risk of care home residents becoming ill with the virus. 

"In addition, the programme for vaccinating all people over the age of 80 is under way."

The Scottish Government's aim is to have all over 80s receive the first dose of the vaccine over the next four weeks. 

In order to facilitate the expansion of the programme, more than 1100 vaccination sites will become operational from next week. 

"These sites will mainly be GP practices and community vaccination centres at this stage," Sturgeon said.

"The number of vaccination sites will continue to grow as our supplies of the vaccine increase and as pharmacies and mass vaccination centres start being used to provide the vaccine."

The developments come as it was confirmed another 78 deaths of people with coronavirus had been recorded in Scotland. 

National Records of Scotland figures showed the total deaths linked to COVID by Sunday was 6,686.

Meanwhile, a further 2,649 people have tested positive, while 1,467 people confirmed to have the virus are currently in hospital. 

The First Minister added the number of patients in hospital "pretty closely now matches the number that were in hospital at the peak of the first wave back in April".