After reading in the Guardian on 29th April: ‘Third of UK Covid-19 patients taken to hospital die, study finds‘, I emailed the Chief Investigator of the research team, Professor Semple, to ask for a Scottish breakdown of the data.
He passed the request on to a Scottish member of the team who provided me with this:
At the moment in Scotland: To compare like with like, I have restricted this to patients who were admitted at least 2 weeks ago (this is a week later than the overall cohort), in order to enable most patients to finish their hospital journey. Out of 788 patients, 142 (18%) have died, 415 (53%) have been discharged alive, and 232 patients remain in hospital.
At first sight, the Scottish sample seems small given the UK sample of ‘nearly 17 000’. With 8% of the population, you might expect a sample of 1360.
However, Scotland has less cases in the first place, only 6.6%, of the UK total. 6.6% of the 17 000 is 1122 so perhaps the sample is reasonably valid.
The 18% mortality in Scottish hospitals is significantly lower than that, 33% across the UK.
It’s not entirely surprising given the higher staffing levels and better performance in infection control, with many English hospitals failing inspections on this criterion, in recent times:
I can find no example of Scottish hospital failing inspections.
Why has Ms Lisa Summers not reported on this? Is there a pigeon angle? Or is that a flight of fancy??
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