A new highest number of daily vaccines has been recorded in Scotland with more than 63,000 people receiving a jab in the past 24 hours, the First Minister has said. 

More than 23 per cent of the population - including many of the most vulnerable - have now received a jab, Nicola Sturgeon said. 

During the past 24 hours 63,178 vaccinations were administered - taking the total to more than  a million at 1,480747. 

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In that time 830people have tested positive for coronavirus, with the test positivity rate falling to 4% per cent.

The number of people in hospital has also fallen to 1499, down 43 from yesterday. This is below the peak of the first wave in last spring, something Ms Sturgeon said was a "ray of sunshine". 

Speaking during the daily Covid briefing, Ms Sturgeon said that the number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 recorded in Scotland since the start of the pandemic was now 189,175

A total of 48 new deaths have been registered, taking the death toll to 6599.

The fall in the percentage of people testing positive for the virus means that the level is now above the 5% considered by the World Health Organisation to indicate that the pandemic is under control. 

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Of the new cases, 243 were in Greater Glasgow and Clyde, 145 in Lanarkshire and 116 in Ayrshire and Arran, and the rest spread out among the ten other health board areas.

Of the 109 people being treated in intensive care, 28 have been hospitalised for more than 28 days, a fall of two from yesterday. 

The First Minister said that the current R number in Scotland was below 1.0.

Ms Sturgeon said: “That is reflected in the decline in case numbers, in test positivity – the 4% test positivity we’ve reported today is the lowest in quite some time.

“The level of hospital admissions has now taken us below the number of admissions seen in the peak last spring.

“All of that is really good news – the rays of sunshine I spoke about last week are undoubtedly a wee bit brighter this week. But it is important for me to continue to stress that the satiation – particularly in relation to the more infectious variant which accounts for about three-quarters of all new cases – that situation remains precarious and demands from all of us continued caution.”

She added that lockdown was working and having an impact on slowing the transmission of the virus.