Readers will remember getting ‘the jag’ after queuing nervously, in some cases, tearfully, with their Primary school chums back in the day when the needles were surely bigger. I don’t remember anybody saying you could choose not to have it. We’d have been out of that door!
Anyhow, the Herald warns us today:
‘Vaccination rates are falling in the West, and immunisation for measles is now mandatory in 12 European countries, including France and Italy. Measles is on the rise in Britain too. So should we follow suit? Should compulsory vaccination be the norm? The UK Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, has already said that he’s “looking very seriously” at compulsory vaccination for school children. Figures show that childhood immunisation rates are dropping across Scotland, and the rest of the UK.’
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18272410.vaccines-compulsory-scotland-herald-sunday-big-read/
Wait a minute! This jagged my memory. What about:
The MMR immunisation rate in England has fallen for the fourth year in a row to only 87% with in some areas only 67% vaccinated. This means that even those who have had the MMR twice remain vulnerable because of a lack of ‘herd immunity’ due to so many not having had it and then spreading it.
In Scotland the rate is 97% and has been so for 10 years.
Click to access 2019-09-24-Childhood-Immunisation-Summary.pdf
And:
On behalf of the poor wee health correspondents at Reporting Scotland Down and at the Herald, I’ve searched and searched for evidence of a Norovirus ‘crisis’ in NHS Scotland. It’s just not there. Even Miles Briggs can’t seem to find any for them and if he can’t no one can.
You’ll see above and in several other MSM reports on NHS England and Wales, that Norovirus is rampant in many hospitals. In one case, the response was a dramatic ‘black alert’:
‘It comes as bosses at Royal Cornwall Hospital was forced to book hotel rooms for patients as space on the wards began running out. Details of the “extraordinary action” were revealed in a briefing note provided to Cornwall councillors by the hospital trust’s chief exec Kate Shields last week. Staff were ordered to reserve ten rooms at local hotels after the hospital declared an OPEL 4 status – previously known as “black alert” – on January 5.’
And:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10802949/norovirus-outbreak-closes-600-hospital-beds-every-day/
Scotland loses its measles-free status despite being measles-free
As England faces deadly measles epidemic leading Scottish academic calls again for hard border
SNP accused of deliberately making Scotland a hostile climate for bacteria and viruses
Will Mumps epidemic spread from England despite 97% MMR rate here?
And:
Scots too tough for Coronavirus?
Note: Last one tongue in cheek. Oh, make sure it’s your own cheek!
Note:
The rate of completion of the primary six/five-in-one vaccine course in 2018 by:
- 12 months of age was 95.9%, compared to 96.6% for the five-in-one vaccine in 2017
- 24 months of age was 97.4%, compared to 97.6% for the five-in-one vaccine in 2017
Rates from 2011 to 2017 had been around 97% and 98% at 12 and 24 months respectively. Rates at both ages have been decreasing over the last five years.
https://www.scotpho.org.uk/health-wellbeing-and-disease/immunisations/data/children/
Readers: Who knows about herd immunity (in humans!)? How worrying is only 95.9%?
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
Here is a fairly straightforward explanation of ‘herd immunity’ and how it works. The more contagious the disease the higher the percentage of the population needs to be vaccinated. Thus for measles it is 90 to 95%
https://www.ovg.ox.ac.uk/news/herd-immunity-how-does-it-work
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Thanks. Very useful. So we still, safely, have herd immunity for our bairns with rates around 95%? But, the English average at 87% is a problem?
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Yes. The English average disguises quite a worrying degree of variation just like their A&E statistics.
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I am pleased to see you using the word “JAG” and not the bool-in-the-mooth disdainful ‘jab’ which BBC Scotland uses. All of us in school called it getting our ‘jag’, sometimes we were corrected by some would-be arriviste teacher who deemed our speech ‘common’.
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And the needles were bigger then? Horse-size?
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Must have been we horses where you lived! Elephant sized!
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The bbc uses ‘jab’ for jag? But a jab isn’t a jag! Imbeciles. I hadn’t noticed to tell the truth – this is now going to be another thing that irritates me!
John, your fear of needles doesn’t mean they’ve changed size in any way 😉
John, I might be about to post a big long comment with millions of links, so it’ll go into moderation – just to give you fair warning that you might need to do some admin work, it’s not on anything particularly pertinent to recent news so no rush though.
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“Jag” implies a piercing of the skin, which is what a needle does, whereas a “jab”, is commonly understood in the boxing sense of a thrust towards someone. It is not intended to be penetrative.
Of course, the proper term is “injection”, but, often, such terms get demotic synonyms.
It is the demotic aspect which makes the BBC see as ‘common’ or plebeian, since scum like me from Anderston used it.
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Done. Thanks. Anyone reading would think you were the prof.
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I’ve tried to do a comparison here between what seems to be an urgent breakdown in the criminal justice system in England and Wales, with what we have in Scotland. The difficulty has been to find anything scandalous in Scotland. I have focused on Legal Aid, as this is a social justice and human rights issue.
Legal aid and the criminal justice system…
Legal Aid exists because everyone should have the right to a fair trial. There is a crisis in England and Wales, the system has been depleted by the English government, and many people now do not receive any representation. Some legal bods opinions:
In England and Wales:
https://www.lawsociety.org.uk/news/press-releases/be-prepared-for-justice-to-fall-apart/?fbclid=IwAR0LGIEpqJfAVe2bBUVebm_u4FG6uZNN2aW029pTJOFol3Qay_0H7VSKS50
“The criminal legal aid system is doomed to spiral into ever greater crisis unless the Ministry of Justice’s plans are urgently rethought, the Law Society of England and Wales warned today.
The Law Society had hoped that the interim proposals from the criminal legal aid review – the ‘accelerated items’ – would provide some urgent relief from the deepening crisis in the criminal legal aid profession.
Today the Law Society rejected any suggestion they are adequate to match the scale of the problem.
Law Society president Simon Davis said: “We have warned time and again that the very existence of criminal defence practitioners is under threat. Unless the package is adjusted to address the depth and urgency of this crisis, then extinction may be firmly on the horizon.
“There are increasingly large areas of the country where there are no defence solicitors available. The very notion of British justice is in jeopardy – with victims left in limbo and the accused potentially deprived of a fair trial.””
“Extinction”? Well, that doesn’t sound too good.
There have been numerous reports of the dire state of the English criminal justice system – trials put back for years because courts are closed etc. This next Twitter thread doesn’t describe any of these, but reviews how a newspaper reporting on a case, involving legal aid, causes harm, by lying and influencing people into blandly accepting political policies that will, in the end, have a devastating impact on society:
Lawyers in England frustrated, in particular at harmful reporting by the press:
https://mobile.twitter.com/BarristerSecret/status/1234092960989556736
Thread:
“Gutter journalism. #FakeLaw.
1. This man was not “handed £400k”. This is a lie. That was the overall cost of legal aid in his criminal and immigration proceedings. This is like saying someone who receives a NHS heart transplant is “given” the cost of the operation.
Ref Article: https://mobile.twitter.com/DominikLemanski/status/1234028313888350208
2. Readers are invited to conclude that £400k is too much to spend on this case. The journalist has not bothered to tell you any of the context that you would need to even *begin* to assess whether that cost is too high, too low, or about right. Such as…
3. How much of that figure includes VAT, which goes to the Treasury? How many lawyers & support staff worked on the case? What work was involved? How many hours, days, months went into this extremely serious case where the defendant was looking at a potential life sentence?
4. £400k sounds like a lot out of context. But the figures are gross, not net. Solicitors’ firms have staff to pay, business costs, rent, insurance, tax etc. Likewise barristers. When all that is broken down, what is the actual *profit* for these professionals?
5. What is the hourly rate? How does that compare to the hourly rate of other professionals? What does this Sun journalist suggest *should* be paid to the most highly experienced professionals in their fields dealing with the most serious criminal and immigration cases?
6. Because this is is what it boils down to: if you are going to run a “news” story or give quotes to the tabloids decrying legal aid spending as “ridiculous”, you should be able to give full context to show why it’s too much, and what sum would have been reasonable.
7. Finally, a journalist or editor with any regard for accuracy would have told their readers that the legal aid scheme under which this 2008 case was funded no longer exists. The Sun is railing against a system which has been cut significantly and repeatedly since 2008.
8. The real problem, the article invites us to conclude, is that he was a bad person, and that is wrong for taxpayer money to be spent ensuring that bad people are fairly convicted. (Note also that he *won* his immigration case. The government was in the wrong here.)
9. This attitude is ignorant, exploitative and dangerous. It is also prevalent. This thread is copied from a response to a near-identical story in The Sun in January. I make no apology for this – as long as they copy and paste trash #FakeLaw, I’ll copy and paste my rebuttals.
10. I don’t care if I am stuck on repeat. These #LegalAidLies have been allowed to flourish unchecked for years. Stories like these are like fake health cure articles – they cause irreparable damage not only to public understanding, but to people’s lives. They must be challenged.
11. The lies you are told by The Sun and others about legal aid – what it’s for, what it costs, why we need it – are the reason governments have been able to remove legal aid from the most vulnerable in society without any political consequence.
Don’t let them lie to you. [ENDS]”
Note: this sort of critical thinking is absolutely essential for reading any kind of news item – always question what you hear or read.
Meanwhile, for comparison, In Scotland:
CAB webpage shows what is covered with legal aid
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/scotland/law-and-courts/legal-system-s/taking-legal-action-s/help-with-legal-costs-s/
Legal aid review 2018 by Scottish government – reasoning for updating legislation (the current one is fairly old & predates human rights laws 1998, and fees systems could be simplified)
https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/corporate-report/2018/11/scottish-government-response-independent-review-legal-aid-scotland/documents/00543475-pdf/00543475-pdf/govscot%3Adocument
Law society of Scotland response to consultation 2019
Click to access 19-09-19-la-consultation-legal-aid-reform.pdf
(Welcomes 3% increase in fees for legal aid. Asks for clarification on many of the questions. Many of the consultation questions are not agreed with, some as unnecessary, many agreed with.)
Review on fees Feb 2020 – Scottish law society thinks fees should be increased:
https://www.lawscot.org.uk/news-and-events/law-society-news/your-views-wanted-scottish-legal-aid-fee-review/
I’m struggling to find a crisis in Scotland – perhaps slightly underfunded (perhaps not, the government thinks it’s fine!). You can still fully access legal aid is the main thing, and get representation in court for criminal cases, in Scotland. Folks, just DO NOT get arrested in England, they are headed towards the uncivilised dark ages.
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Wow!
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Alasdair, elephant-sized needles? Luxury. We had to make do with rusty nails!
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Bloody luxury! The nurse used to snap our arms open, pour the medication into the exposed flesh and then sellotape the bits back together and then make us do 20 press-ups.
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I surrender!
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😀 nooooo, please, stop, it’ll get out of hand! 😀
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Out of hand? We dreamed of things just getting out of hand. Our neighbours were ISIS!
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Hah. Nope – ‘sellotape’ wins this round, you’ve already surrendered.
Anyway, youse are big fearties, we had our arms flayed by rabid ferrets then the inoculation dissolved in sulphuric acid spread over the open flesh until it bubbled up in oozing pustules, then our arms were doused in freezing water for two hours until numb so that we could sew our own patches of flesh back on, one handed, using an elephant sized rusty needle and cat gut for thread.
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