Nicola Sturgeon claims she 'misspoke' when falsely stating 400,000 weekly vaccine target had been 'exceeded'

The First Minister on Tuesday in Holyrood and health secretary Jeane Freeman during a briefing on Wednesday both said the Scottish Government target of delivering 400,000 vaccinations a week had been “exceeded” in February.

Scotland was instead “on course” to pass the target, but fell just short of it due to bad weather, with the highest number of vaccinations in a single week reaching 392,000 in February 8 to February 14.

Nicola Sturgeon has said she "misspoke" by saying the Scottish Government had "exceeded" a vaccination target it had missed.

The claim the target had been met and exceeded was described as “misleading” by new Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar.

Asked about the error during her daily coronavirus briefing, Ms Sturgeon said she had “misspoke” during the question-and-answer session in the Scottish Parliament.

She said: "I got it slightly wrong in the heat of answering the question.

"We did have that week we had planned, we had appointments booked to meet or slightly exceed that 400,000 target.

"What happened was the snow meant that the cancellations that came about led to us falling slightly under it, so 392,000.

"I just misspoke in the moment because that is what we had planned.

"[To hit] 392,000, in a week where we had some of the most severe weather the country has had in years, I think is a pretty good achievement, but that’s the reason.”

As of Friday, 1,717,672 Scots have received their first coronavirus vaccine.

A total of 108,197 have had their second jab, with 8,139 getting it on Thursday.

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