SCOTLAND is on course to hit the one million vaccine milestone this week, Nicola Sturgeon has confirmed.

She told the Scottish Government’s daily coronavirus briefing that 866,823 people have received their first dose of a vaccine, an increase of 27,557 from Sunday.

This is three times the number vaccinated last Sunday, the First Minister said.

However, the number vaccinated on Sundays continues to be significantly lower than on Saturdays – this week there was a 25,282 drop between Saturday and Sunday, down around 48%.

This follows from a 58% fall between Saturday and Sunday the previous week and 51% the week before that.

Questioned on the drop between Saturday and Sunday, the First Minister said it is “just about health boards making sure they book their capacity on a Sunday”.

However, she highlighted around 80,000 people received a first dose of the vaccine over this weekend, more than double the figure of the previous weekend.

She said a total of 99.6% of residents in older care homes have received a first jag, which is “a scale of uptake which none of us really believed would be possible”.

The First Minister added that more than 95% of over-80s living in the community have had their first dose of a vaccine and almost 67% of people aged 75-79 and 29% of people aged 70-75 have received their first jag.

Highlighting that more than 290,000 people have received a first dose in the past seven days, Sturgeon said Scotland’s vaccination programme “undoubtedly picked up pace considerably over the course of the last week”.

But she warned the first dose of a vaccine does not begin to have a protective effect until around two or three weeks after it is received and urged everyone, including those who have received it, to be careful and stick to lockdown restrictions.

The First Minister also gave an update on the daily coronavirus case figures in Scotland.

A total of five deaths of coronavirus patients in Scotland were recorded in the previous 24 hours, along with 928 new cases, Sturgeon said.

READ MORE: Fact Check: Are Tories right to say SNP promised to vaccinate one million Scots by February?

The death toll under this measure – of people who first tested positive for the virus within the previous 28 days – was 6443.

The daily test positivity rate was 6.6%, down from 6.9% on Sunday when 584 new cases were recorded.

There were 1672 people in hospital confirmed to have Covid-19, down 38 in 24 hours.

Of these, 108 were in intensive care, no change on the previous day.

Sturgeon also announced an expansion of targeted community testing using rural fire stations to a total of 21 locations in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, Transport Secretary Michael Matheson will today give an update to Holyrood on the Scottish Government’s plans to require all travellers into Scotland from overseas to quarantine in a hotel for 10 days at their own expense.

Last week the First Minister announced all international arrivals into Scotland must undergo “managed quarantine”, going further than the UK Government’s scheme which requires travellers from 33 “red list” countries to self-isolate in government provided accommodation.

In a statement at Holyrood, Sturgeon told MSPs: “The firm view of the Scottish Government is that in order to minimise the risk of new strains coming into the country, managed quarantine must be much more comprehensive.

“We intend to introduce a managed quarantine requirement for anyone who arrives directly into Scotland, regardless of which country they have come from.”

The First Minister also said that, while she could not “unilaterally” impose such restrictions on people arriving elsewhere in the UK and travelling to Scotland, she hoped that ministers would work with the Scottish Government to reduce the number of people doing so. The UK Government plans to impose supervised hotel quarantine on arrivals from 33 high-risk countries from next Monday.

Sturgeon said “we must learn from past mistakes”, lamenting the fact that Covid had “almost been eliminated in Scotland last July” and blamed overseas travel for helping to reseed the virus.

A study by researchers in Aberdeen published last week found international travel had the biggest impact on Covid death rates for countries hit in the pandemic’s first wave. The team said early restrictions on international travel could have made a difference in the spread of the virus.