In another classic ‘blue meanie’ report from Helen McArdle, the Herald’s Visiting Health Correspondent, with that other ‘blue meanie’ Hugh Penningtom in her corner, we get a desperate attempt to make sure we don’t start thinking that NHS Scotland, the Scottish Government or Scots for that matter played any part in the stark and growing divide between the coronavirus death rate in Scotland and in England.
First, using evidence from South-East Asia she concludes that population density will have been a big factor, with England having a much higher level than Scotland. This is the first daft one. Central Scotland where nearly all of the deaths are and thus where lower rate is based, is one of the most densely populated areas in Europe.
Second she goes for ethnicity, correctly pointing out that the death rate is higher in more diverse areas such as London and the Midlands and that this is less true of Scotland but then she puzzles the reader on poverty. She notes that the higher death rate in Glasgow may be down to greater poverty there but then fails to note that this would surely be expected to have increased the overall Scottish death rate.
There was no way she was going to find in our favour here but there is much evidence that the lower death rate has been earned.
There’s no mention of the fact that Scotland has a far higher base mortality rate than England and that despite that coronavius deaths are lower.
There’s no mention of NHS Scotland’s higher staffing ratio.
There’s no mention of the fact that Scotland’s hospitals with their in-house cleaning did not have mass Norovirus closures last winter as NHS England did.
There’s no mention of NHS Scotland’s vastly superior A&E performance.
There’s no mention of Scotland’s 50 unique coronavirus assessment centres keeping infected patients away from GP surgeries.
There’s no mention of the evidence that urban Scots have obeyed the social distancing rules more than their counterparts in the South.
I have the evidence for all these claims. They’re easy found. Any half-baked health correspondent will have the necessary research skills.
Footnote: See this paragraph in McArdle’s report:
‘The reason for the large discrepancy between the two nations is unclear. It could be partly skewed by the smaller sample size in Scotland, but there have also been reports of doctors recording Covid deaths as something else – for example, pneumonia, dementia or old age. It is possible this is happening more frequently in England than Scotland.’
Readers will know that I’m not a ‘leading’ statistician but, ‘sample size?’ Surely these are not samples but all of the recorded data and the Scottish data are now ‘truer’ after using the NRS data for more than a week?
And, if doctors in England were ‘recording Covid deaths as something else‘ wouldn’t that have the effect of reducing the discrepancy not making it large?
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
Do you need any secondary qualifications to be a “Health Correspondent” beyond a Bic Biro and an iPad
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No
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Bic Biro? Saved my left-handed wee life from Ms Peattie’s knap across my ruckles when I smudged my wet ink handwriting all the time.
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Great post John.
They are not journalist’s
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https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/coronavirus-why-is-the-irish-death-rate-lower-than-the-uk-s-1.4228638
I think this helps make tyhe case
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Yep, exactly Sam. I can’t help keeping thinking about how much we could have done differently if we were independent – closed the borders earlier, stop flights earlier, done nearly everything differently (though still the lockdown because that seems to be an essential part of the strategy). It is now making me want to cry that we are stuck with the genocidal policy makers in Westminster, and the Scottish government is being so broadly compliant – I dread any mention of COBRA meetings, it seems to bring on more compliance. Scotland is doing better than England, but they are on track to be the worst in the world, and we could have been doing as well as some of the more successful countries – every single life matters, and anything that minimises the number of fatalities should be part of policy.
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Also, while cross country comparisons may not be easy at present, this piece from Sean Danaher suggests that death rates in English care homes due to covid19 are currently running at 50%. ( A comment suggests 60%.) At present, it is assumed that 10% of deaths in England’s care homes are due to covid19. Little wonder UK government is trying to prevent Scots care homes getting PPE so England’s care homes can be supplied.
http://www.progressivepulse.org/health/care-homes-and-uk-mortality-figures
“The Current UK position was that hospital deaths account for about 93% of total Covid-19 deaths, but this has been revised to 90% today. This is at odds with some other European countries (Belgium, France, Ireland, Italy and Spain) where deaths outside hospital, largely in care homes, account for about 50% of the total.
The Covid-19 pandemic is, of course, evolving very rapidly, but the disparity between the UK and some other countries seems dramatic. The 10% outside of hospital seems very anomalous and if the 50% figure is correct then the UK could already have the highest Covid-19 mortality in Europe.”
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Surely there must be some mistakes here concerning what’s happening elsewhere in the UK!!
On the BBC News website this morning, here are the headlines used with the ‘Live’ Coronavirus updates on the pages for the different nations:
‘Live: Coronavirus in England: latest updates’
‘Live: Coronavirus in NI on 15 April’
‘Live: Coronavirus in Wales: latest updates’
‘Live: Coronavirus in Scotland: PPE concerns continue’.
Got the message?
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There may still be concern that UK government is p[laying fair. This tweet , made 2 hours ago, from Dr Macaskill does not fill me with confidence.
Donald Macaskill
@DrDMacaskill
·
2h
Pleased to hear from
@JeaneF1MSP
on
@bbcscotland
#gms say that additional support will be given to #socialcare from
@NHSNSS
– very welcome indeed! However we need our traditional #PPE suppliers to start up normal business and deliver to our members.
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I think that the PPE/Care Home supplies ‘issue’ has really spooked the unionists. Kaye Adams’ startled reply to Dr MacAskill’s statement was a precursor, followed by her somewhat sneering ‘are there no suppliers in Scotland?’ .
The following day, we had the unchallenged ‘interview’ (piece of propaganda by a care home owner, who turned out to be a substantial donor to the Tory Party and of a Union-promoting body. (Incidentally, his statement was reported uncritically by the Morning Star, who did NOT identify him as a Tory – so much for their communist purity.)
Then we had the ‘rubbish’ statement by Professor Leitch, which was almost immediately challenged by the FM and by Ms Freeman. By this time even the BBC website had to start reporting this. Clearly Westminster was spooked, with Mr Hancock ‘becoming unavailable’ and the Chancellor denying any such instruction to PPE suppliers.
Care home infection and deaths in England are now being reported and questions are beginning to be asked, even by unionist dirt-diggers like Mr Ciaran Jenkins of Ch4 News. So, although as stewartb has reported above BBC Scotland still sees care home PPE as an attack line in Scotland, I think that Ms McArdle and Prof Pennington’s dodgy analysis of data are indicative of a concern that maybe Scotland has handled things a bit better.
And now, despite Mr Hancock’s ‘reassurance’ to Ms Freeman, several of our readers have identified the relevant Public Health England document, which appears to be indicating that suppliers are being told to prioritise England.
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Diversity? Ethnicity? What is that woman on about? Higher fatality rates from coronavirus has been linked to higher pollution – probably all cities should have been locked down first, but there wasn’t really enough evidence earlier on. Its probably why Glasgow looks like the coronavirus hot-spot in Scotland, the high population makes it look worse of course and I don’t think we’ll be able to tell until much later. For all the people moaning on social media, I’ve only seen good distancing behaviour in Glasgow, and lots of considerate behaviour. I nearly got run down by a police van touring the park earlier though. Near frightened the life out of me sneaking up at the back of me like that (very windy so it’s hard to hear quiet engines) (the park guy’s truck is noisier)
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There’s also the fact that the Scottish Government is still responsible for the Scottish Health Service. This duty of care means that the Scottish Health Service is still functioning. Maybe this is not optimal because Scotland is still tethered to the UK. Government responsibility for the English Health Service was ended by the 2012 Act. I remember Professor Pollock warning about this in 2014. Protecting the Health Service was one of the reasons for voting YES.
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