It is too early to think about opening up Scotland and returning to normal life despite progress in curbing the spread of Covid-19 and the rollout of the vaccine programme, Scotland’s national clinical director has said. 

Professor Jason Leitch believes the country is "not out of the woods" yet, though the number of people being infected by the disease has fallen.

Last week it was reported that the number of people testing positive for the disease had fallen below five per cent on consecutive days, the level the World Health Organisation (WHO) deems safe to consider an epidemic under control.

But Professor Leitch said that there were still to many people sick with the virus and entering hospital to consider lifting restrictions in the short term.

Asked this morning if, in the wake of Scotland's rugby victory over England, people could look forward to returning to sports stadiums soon, he said: "I would love to do that. I would absolutely love it. I would have loved to have been there on Saturday

"It's going to be some time [and] I can't give you a date. One of the big challenges we have - R number [is] down. Positivity is down. Prevalence [is] still too high.

"Prevalence on its way down, but last week 67 people were admitted to intensive care. I don't mean that's how many we had in, we had more than that in, but the pipeline is probably the more important statistic." 

READ MORE: Fears over South Africa variant raise prospect of booster jab

He added: "So 67 people were admitted to intensive care with this disease last week, and many of them will die. 

"So we're not out of the woods. We're doing well, and the population are really, really doing it, but we've got to be really, really cautious about any opening just now. 

Prof Leitch said that public confidence in the coronavirus vaccine is “absolutely crucial”, and that he was not “overly worried” about a new study in South Africa which found the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab was not effective at preventing mild illness caused by the more infectious mutation.

The study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, led to South Africa suspending its rollout of the British-designed vaccine.

Speaking to the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland radio programme, Prof Leitch said that while people were right to be cautious, everything pointed to the vaccine creating greater immunity in older people.

The initial trials of the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab were “relatively small”, he said, though he was not “overly worried” by the new South African study.

Prof Leitch said: “Public confidence in vaccines is absolutely crucial and our data would suggest that’s not a big problem, in fact quite the opposite.

“If you told me three months ago that 94% of over-80s would take this injection, I genuinely would not have believed you.”

Those in younger age groups tended to be less keen to take up other vaccines, he said.

READ MORE: Rise in the number of cases of South African variant 

Prof Leitch added: “Everybody in the scientific community says 80% is kind of where you should aim for.

“So if you’re going to set yourself a target, set yourself a target of 80%.

“But we want more than that, we got 99.4% of care home residents, there’s a tiny number who are not eligible or they turned it down for whatever reason.

“So that’s what I want in the 30-year-olds when we get to the 30-year-olds.”