Nicola Sturgeon says different choices may be made this time around when it comes to the phased relaxation of lockdown measures across Scotland.
The First Minister confirmed that the Scottish Government won't necessarily make the same decisions as they did last year when it comes to deciding what gets to reopen first, and what has to wait longer.
Current lockdown restrictions will remain in place across the country until the end of February at least, however Sturgeon said this week that they may look at making some changes in March should case numbers drop to low levels.
She admitted number one priority was getting young people back to school, and in face-to-face learning.
The First Minister said: "Reopening will be phased as it was last summer, but there may be different phasing. We may make different choices. As I've already said – children first. It could mean things that opened in the first stage last year take it a bit longer this time. We just have to be careful about that and err on the side of caution.
"In terms of opening up, getting the virus to as low a level as possible and getting as many people vaccinated as we can. It's a combination of these things. I'm not saying we're not going to open anything up until we have all over-50s vaccinated, but the more people we have vaccinated, coupled with the low levels we get the virus to, the more we can look to open up, albeit gradually."
Sturgeon says it's hard to know exactly when we'll start to see the vaccination numbers impact on the daily case figures, hospital numbers and deaths.
She added: "It's hard to be really definitive about that because we don't know about the impact of the vaccine on transmission. We know that it suppresses illness, and hopefully deaths, but there's still more doubt about the impact on transmission. You don't know whether it stops you getting or passing on the vaccine.
"I would hope that we see an impact on hospital, intensive care and the numbers of deaths reported in the weeks to come.
"Hopefully in the longer term we see a greater impact on transmission as well, but we've got to be cautious."
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