Nicola Sturgeon said she cannot give any certainty that the Prime Minister’s commitment to vaccinate the first four priority groups by mid-February was achievable.

Boris Johnson said last night that “with a fair wind” everyone over 70 and those who are clinically vulnerable would get the jag by then, around 14million people in the UK.

However, Ms Sturgeon said that in Scotland the timetable was to vaccinate everyone in all the priority groups, those aged 50 and above and those with health conditions, with one dose by early May.

She said: “I don’t know beyond January what the flow of supply is going to be.

“To start to bring that May date forward I don’t have the certainty of supplies.

“I don’t yet have every certainty to say we think we can do the first four groups by mid-February.”

She said she wanted to and would do everything possible to achieve that but re-iterated that certainty of supply was not there.

She added: “To say with certainty would be putting the cart before the horse.”

Ms Johnson had said "By the middle of February, if things go well and with a fair wind in our sails, we expect to have offered the first vaccine dose to everyone in the four top priority groups identified by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation."

That would mean all aged 70 and above, health care staff, care home residents and staff and those with clinical need would be vaccinated within six weeks.

Ms Sturgeon gave the daily update and said there had been another 2529 positive cases reported in the last 24 hours.  There were more than 600 in Greater Glasgow and Clyde area.

She said the new variant was responsible for around half of all cases.

The number of people in hospital was 1037, which was an increase of 255 in a week and there were 93 people in intensive care, an increase of 28 in a week.