NICOLA Sturgeon has warned that an expected 75 per cent take-up of the Covid-19 vaccine could be disrupted by “uncertainties” over supplies of the jags.

The First Minister stressed that the supply unknowns for 2021 are “outwith our control” and are being faced by officials in all parts of the UK. But she insisted that plans to vaccinate everyone on the priority list down to those aged 50 remains on track to be completed by the spring.

Speaking at the daily coronavirus briefing, Ms Sturgeon said that around 9,000 people in Scotland have now been vaccinated since the roll-out began on Tuesday.

She added: “Is it still our hope and intention that that JCVI initial priority list, which is an order of priority to everyone down to the age of 50, will be completed by the spring – yes. We would then hope to get into the under 50 part of the population after that.

“That is entirely dependent on the supplies of the vaccine that we receive. We do not have absolute certainty on that right now. We have access in the first week to about 65,000 doses and everyone needs two doses of this vaccine. We expect to get further supplies of the Pfizer vaccine over the rest of this calendar year.”

But the First Minister warned that as we move into next year, there is “uncertainty” around the vaccine supplies.

She added: “The overall ability to vaccinate all of the people in the priority list depends on other vaccines being authorised and starting to see those supplies flow as well.

“We are not in control of when the NHRA will give the authority to supply to these other vaccines.

“These uncertainties are outwith our control at the moment – equally they are not just uncertainties facing the Scottish Government, the UK, Welsh, Norther Irish government are in exactly the same position.”

The Scottish Government's vaccination rollout plans assume that 75 per cent of the population will receive the jag – which Ms Sturgeon said was “based on what the advice is that is necessary to get the effect that we need from vaccination”.

She added: “Our uptake figures factor into the expected supplies and then the timetable for which we think we can vaccinate everybody.”

The First Minister was pressed over whether if 75 per cent of the Scottish public is vaccinated, will restrictions such as wearing masks and social distancing be eased.

But Ms Sturgeon warned that it will not be know until next year as to whether the vaccination prevents the virus spreading from one person to another.

She said: “Some of the answers to what extend will this vaccine get us back to complete normality or something closer to that and will we still need some level of restrictions, it’s hard to answer that definitively at the moment because there’s some things about this vaccine that we don’t know yet.

“There is a lot of confidence coming from the trials that it suppresses illness in people but we won’t know for some time yet whether it actually prevents transmission from one person to another – that's one of the big unknowns.”

The First Minister added: “Vaccination is going to get us back to much more normality than we have right now – whether that will be 100 per cent, 90 per cent, 75 per cent - I cannot answer that right now.

“Hopefully that becomes clearer as we go into next year.”