Thank you, convener. I very much welcome the opportunity to join you today, along with the chief medical officer. We both look forward to the discussions ahead and to answering your questions on our overall strategic approach to Covid, on the detail of the emergency legislation—to the extent that you want to get into it—and on any other issues that are of interest to the committee.
I will keep my introductory remarks brief, but I have some of today’s figures—albeit that I do not have all of them; it is a bit early in the day for that—which, I think, it might be useful to share with the committee.
Yesterday there were 691 new cases reported, and the test positivity percentage was 3.1 per cent of all tests carried out. Unfortunately, a further 20 deaths were registered in the past 24 hours, which means that the total number of deaths under the daily measurement that we use is now 7,461. I am sure that the thoughts of all of us are with those who have been bereaved over the past year.
Later today, National Records of Scotland will publish its weekly report on deaths, and the Scottish Government will publish the daily figures on the number of people who are currently in hospital and in intensive care. We know from recent days that both those numbers have been declining; we hope that we will continue to see that trend in the days to come.
I will also give you the information that I have so far today on the progress of the vaccination programme. As at 8.30 this morning, 1,809,158 people have received the first dose of vaccine, which is an increase since yesterday of 19,781. As I have said, most recently yesterday in the Parliament, over the past couple of weeks a dip in the supply of the vaccine has resulted in the dip in the daily vaccination rate that you can see from the latest figure, but we expect supplies to increase from the middle of this month. We expect that the daily vaccination rate will, consequently, pick up again.
We have now vaccinated virtually everybody in the over-65 age group and, to date, 44 per cent of 60 to 64-year-olds, 37 per cent of 55 to 59-year-olds and 30 per cent of 50 to 54-year-olds. We are still on track, and we expect to stay on track, to offer first doses to all over-50s, all unpaid carers and all adults with an underlying health condition by the middle of April.
The progress on the vaccination programme, coupled with the progress that has been made in suppressing the virus, gives us more grounds for optimism now than we have had for some time, and it has opened the way to getting children back to school in a phased way. Progress allowed me to set out to Parliament yesterday some very modest but, I hope, important relaxations of the restrictions that are in place, in particular around our ability to meet other people outdoors. As I said yesterday, next week I will set out a more detailed indicative timeline for the opening up of the economy.
To reiterate what I said in my statement to the Parliament yesterday, despite all the positive news that we have to report and reflect on, we still need to be cautious. We still face a number of risks that will materialise if we start to come out of lockdown more quickly than the vaccination programme gives protection across the whole population.
The virus that we are dealing with now is more infectious than the one that we were dealing with as we came out of lockdown last year. Right now, the new variant accounts for around 90 per cent of all new cases in Scotland. The reproduction number is below 1, but we believe that it is not much below 1. As we start to ease restrictions, there is a risk that it will go above 1 again, so we need to be careful in what we do.
As you can see from the information that I have shared today, although case numbers have fallen significantly—down to 691 new cases yesterday—they remain higher than we want them to be. Having the virus circulating at such a relatively high level, although it is much lower than it was, poses the risk that it will, as we start to ease restrictions, run out of control again. That all means that we have to be careful, cautious and very considered in what we do, so that the progress that we are making out of lockdown continues to be steady. Progress might not be as quick as we would all love it to be, but we hope that if we get the timing right, progress will be steady and will go in one direction, rather than our suffering setbacks along the way.
I imagine that this will be the last time that I appear before the committee in this parliamentary session. Therefore, I take the opportunity to thank the committee for the immense amount of work that it has done, in very unusual circumstances over the past year, to scrutinise what the Government has being doing on an emergency footing. I know that it has not been easy, but the Government has—usually—appreciated the committee’s contribution and input. Therefore, I convey my thanks to all members of the committee for their work.
I will stop there; I am sure that the committee has lots of questions.