ALL adults in Scotland could have had their first Covid jag by the summer, Jeane Freeman has said.

The Health Secretary was speaking as the number of Scots to have had a vaccine dose rocketed in recent days.

More than 50,000 Scots were inoculated on Saturday, smashing the previous record by some considerable distance.

Freeman told the BBC’s new Sunday Show that the Government’s ambition was to get through all 4.5 million adults in Scotland “in the summer”.

She added: “Now, at this point, it is not very sensible to give specific dates because there are a number of unknowns, partly what the [Joint Committee on vaccines and immunisation JCVI] tells us, and partly about supplies.

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“What is the case is that our infrastructure to do that is there. We have the vaccinators, we have the support staff, we have the local and the regional centres able to do it so we’ve just to keep going. As fast as we get supplies, we’ll be vaccinated.”

Asked to give a broad outline of when shops or pubs might open, the Health Secretary said it was impossible to give that as it wouldn’t be “fair”.

Freeman said the Government’s priority was education, and any reopening couldn’t risk allowing kids returning to school.

“We need to learn from our previous experiences,” she said. “And that is every time you ease the restrictions, and of course that’s what we all want, you see a rise in case numbers. So you have to have them as low as you can possibly go.”

Freeman said the Government was on schedule to hit targets depending on supplies. She also said that there would, effectively be two work streams on the programme starting in March, with second doses going to those already jagged, while first doses start going to the under-50s.

The Health Secretary said the Government were still waiting on the JCVI’s guidance on the how those jags should be prioritised.

“The Joint Committee on Vaccines and Immunisation that give us their best clinical advice about who is most important to vaccinate, and in what order, are looking now at what they want to tell us, and advise us for the under 50s.

“We should know that fairly soon. And at that point, we’ll make our decisions about what we do.”

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Figures released yesterday revealed that as of 8.30am yesterday, 839,266 people in Scotland had had the first dose of the vaccine – up 52,389 in 24 hours.

That included 99.5% of residents in older adult care homes, 93% of residents in all care homes, and 94% of people aged 80 or over living in the community.

Meanwhile, 64% of the 75-79s, and 26% of the 70-74s had also had their first dose.

And, in total, 10,582 had received a second dose.

However, all eyes will be on the vaccine figures due to be published this afternoon.

The number of jags has fallen away rapidly over the last two Sundays.

Last week, the Scottish vaccination figure was just 9628.

Scotland’s national clinical director Jason Leitch told MSPs that Sundays had been a problem because many GP surgeries were closed.

But, he added, the mass vaccination hubs now up and running in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen should make a difference.

The Government also reported 584 new cases of Covid in Scotland on Saturday. In a slight downturn, the test positivity rate was 6.9%, the first time it’s spiked up above the crucial 5% in two days.

There were seven reported deaths – though with register offices generally closed at weekends figures reported on a Saturday and Sunday are always lower.