Reader Rosie Andrew tipped me off on this.
You might remember Jackson Carlaw saying, at FM Questions, two days ago:
It is also reported today that the ratio of care home deaths is double that of the figure elsewhere across the UK. Fewer tests for our care homes, more deaths in our care homes.
The claim was widely repeated and never questioned. It’s wrong, of course. See this below from the ONS:
So in England and Wales, 9 039 out of 12 483 covid-related deaths, by 1st May, were in care homes and that is 72.4%.
In Scotland, by 10th May:
More than four in 10 coronavirus deaths have now been in care homes (44.8%).
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-52214177
72.4 is 62% higher than 44.8.
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
Prepare a gag for the man with the actual facts printed on it
Open his mouth Ram the gag in
Seal to retain
Send him for a long stand in the corner of irrelevance
Place the dunces cap upon his stupid head
Trust the people and let them decide his fate at the next election
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“Trust the people and let them decide”.
But the Tories don’t do that. Carlot could jus as easily get a Peerage, and end up besides Ruthie, Bella, Forsyth, Lang, and all the rest of the duffers who get to appear on our colonial BBC.
Its the “Union Bonus” for selling out your own country.
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Only yesterday we had Grant Shaps say death rates in care homes in EU 50% England only 25% also this.
He says 126,064 tests were carried out yesterday. That is a record, he says, but it was said on QT last night only 71000+ was done Tory MP caught out again so Carcrash should be told about these lies.
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Let us all be very vocal on this now the true facts are starting to come out . 10,000 ‘unexplained ‘deaths in England is probably 10,000 care home deaths due to the virus that have gone uncounted , let’s see how that pushes England way beyond Scotland in the graph ! .
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When I was at university in the 1960s one of the recommended texts in maths was “Use and Misuse of Statistics” (something like that.) It was a serious tome about advising how statistical data should be handled and presented in an informative way to enable good decision making.
I think that what aspiring politicians and journalists do is use this text for the effective ‘MISUSE’ of statistics to foster their mendacious claims.
Similarly, in the undergraduate Moral Philosophy classes we learned about ‘fallacies’ (there are hunners o thum!) and why they were ‘bad’. Many Westminster politicians studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE – now there’s a revealing coincidence of abbreviation!) at Oxford or Cambridge and it is clear that the lesson they learned was about how to deploy fallacies for their nefarious purposes.
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I know the book you refer to. I read that and a couple of other books on maths and stats to help me through econometrics at university. Should be required reading on any HE course.
Incidentally PPE is often seen to mean ‘Piss Poor Education’.
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In the main text of the blog above there is this: “So in England and Wales, 9 039 out of 12 483 covid-related deaths, by 1st May, were in care homes and that is 72.4%.”
I’ve gone back to the ONS source and I suggest this is a misunderstanding/ misinterpretation of the original data!
I quote from the ONS report in full: “Looking at deaths involving COVID-19 among care home residents, 72.2% (9,039 deaths) occurred WITHIN a care home, and 27.5% (3,444 deaths) occurred WITHIN a hospital.” (my emphasis) So yes a total of 12 483 deaths but …
What this ONS statement is telling us is how many and what proportion of care home residents whose death involved Covid-19 had been admitted to and died in hospital as distinct from care home residents dying in their usual place of residence, i.e. within their care home.
The ONS report can be found here where my interpretation can be checked out: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/articles/deathsinvolvingcovid19inthecaresectorenglandandwales/deathsoccurringupto1may2020andregisteredupto9may2020provisional
What the ONS report also says is this:
“Since the beginning of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic (between the period 2 March and 1 May 2020, registered up to the 9 May 2020) there were 45,899 deaths of care home residents (WHEREVER THE DEATH OCCURRED) of these 12,526 involved COVID-19, which is 27.3% of all deaths of care home residents.”
Finally, this note in the ONS report is important to bear in mind when looking at data from this and other sources:
‘The term “care home residents” used in this (ONS) article refers to all deaths where either (a) the death occurred in a care home, or (b) the death occurred elsewhere but the place of residence of the deceased was recorded as a care home. The figures should not be confused with “deaths in care homes” as reported in other publications, which refers only to category (a).’
This is a statistical and a definitional and a linguistic mine field. Speaking generally rather on this instance there is so much scope for innocent confusion but also malign obfuscation!
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I am confused with this as I read this there were 12,526 care home residents dies some of which were in hospital. 24763 deaths were reported at that time in England and Wales. So the care home deaths would have been approx. 50% of the total deaths. at the time UK gov was saying it was about 15%. probably because of the lag in the data
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Now he will just say that hospital deaths percentages are higher in Scotland. If he bothered about facts, oh wait…
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There is no doubt death figures in England have been and are being manipulated for propaganda purposes. FT and others’ analyses attempted to address the gulf between excess deaths and those declared due to the virus, but that public bodies are able to be hide data at all under political direction is deeply troubling.
Care Home deaths in particular, did they die in hospital, did they die in the Home, etc., is a further distortion, but Jackson concentrating on the Scottish Care-Homes “scandal” was puzzling, in where the misdirection so beloved of Tories was misdirecting from.
Then this appeared, https://twitter.com/StefSimanowitz/status/1260665437790130177
and the PQ+GMB+Jackson misdirection campaign against SG made sense.
What they had been trying to pin on SG remains policy in England, and not a cheep from the media. Why?
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Keir Starmer questioned Johnston with regards to care home deaths last week. Starmer said that average deaths, in care homes for the past five years, in England was 8000, in April this year there were 26000 deaths in English care homes. 8000 being the average and 8000 as a result of covid 19. Johnston could not (or would not) say what caused a further 10,000 deaths this year. I think we can all draw our own conclusions. They are ‘doctoring’ the figures.
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So you’ve added 2 nations statistics together to make your point. That’s actually embarrassing. Health is devolved in Scotland and Wales. So compare Scotland and England and Scotland with Wales but you can’t add England and Wales together and compare it to Scotland. Why not go the whole hog and add Northern Ireland?
I haven’t seen that level of spin since Hancock thought he could get away with getting his 100,000 tests by adding nose and mouth swabs together.
Embarrasing propaganda. I work in healthcare and what has happened in those care homes is disgusting. Scotland and England failed its most vulnerable and both Health Secretaries should be held to account.
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Not as embarrassing as thinking I’d do such a thing. The ONS publishes them together. I can’t separate them.
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