NICOLA Sturgeon has said she “agonises” over whether the Scottish Government locked down early enough last spring and also if she and her ministers took sufficient action on border control to contain the spread of the coronavirus.

She made the comment in response a question from the Scottish Greens' co-leader Patrick Harvie in Holyrood yesterday and it followed the UK passing the milestone of a 100,000 deaths to Covid earlier this week.

It means that Britain now has the largest number of fatalities to the virus in Europe and one of the highest deaths rates in the world.

Boris Johnson was adamant the UK Government “did everything it could” to contain the virus when he announced the grim statistics at a press conference on Tuesday.

But reflecting on her and her Government’s record as she spoke at First Minister Questions yesterday, Sturgeon adopted a very different approach having revealed that 5970 people have died of the virus in Scotland, under the measure of patients who first tested positive for the virus within the previous 28 days.

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According to the Office of National Statistics, England has the highest death rate per 100,000 of all the UK nations across the pandemic at 156.4, ahead of Wales with 144.7, Scotland at 106.1 and Northern Ireland at 93.1.

“The milestone that was passed this week for the number of people dying in the UK is grim and should be something that lives with, haunts and is imprinted on the minds and hearts of everybody who has been a decision maker in the pandemic,” she said.

“I am clear that I and my Government have tried every single day to do everything that we possibly can. The death rate in Scotland is of course far too high, but it is slightly lower than the rate in other parts of the UK, or in the UK as a whole. We try to do everything every day, but nobody can look at those figures and conclude that, every day, we succeeded. That demands frankness from all of us.”

She added: “I have already reflected on some of the things that I would do differently if I could turn back the clock. In part, that is about applying the benefit of hindsight, and other people can judge whether it is fair to call those things mistakes. However, in addition, mistakes will have been made.

“One thing that I agonise about is whether we locked down early enough. Although we locked down at the same time as England, given the relative rates of infection, in effect we probably locked down slightly earlier than England did. But was that early enough? We of course had constraints in terms of the economic packages that [were] required to be put in place.”

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She added: “I also agonise over border control. Should we have done more, even when the UK Government did not want to? We need to learn and apply that lesson in the weeks to come.

“I will never stand here and pretend that we did everything that we possibly could and that we did not get anything wrong, because that is not the case. However, it is really important that we learn as we go and that we ensure that, where we got things wrong, we put that right in future, and I will try to do that.

“Although I can reflect and offer thoughts on things that I wish we could have done differently, as I have just done, ultimately, it is not for me or people like me to mark our own homework. That is why, in the fullness of time, a full public inquiry into all those issues is necessary and appropriate.”

Noting the 100,000 deaths' milestone Harvie said "across both Governments and the whole political spectrum, we share a deep regret; we also share responsibility" before referring to Johnson claims that everything that could have been done was done.

He went on: "Buut the First Minister has acknowledged that mistakes have been made, including sticking too closely to the UK’s position on international travel. Does that regret go further?

"Have there been other choices where the First Minister accepts that, as seems clear to me, the desire for a four-nations approach held us back, whether it was in locking down too late or opening up too early, or in the economic response or the test, trace and isolate systems?".

Updating Holyrood on the pandemic, the First Minister revealed 82 more people had died of the coronavirus and 1021 new cases were reported in the past 24 hours.

There are 1938 people in hospital confirmed to have Covid-19, down 33 in 24 hours. Of these patients, 142 are in intensive care – a fall of three in the same period. She also revealed the R number (the rate of transmission) has fallen below one, pointing out it shows Scotland is making “progress in suppressing the virus”.