Scotland’s ‘Z Score’ or measure of excess covid mortality is far lower than England

By sam

So how does the UK and its component parts compare?

http://www.progressivepulse.org/brexit/covid-19-how-is-the-uk-doing

“International comparisons are difficult, as testing and reporting regimes vary from country to country. Other governments are not above putting a gloss on their data. Fortunately just as the UK has the ONS, all European countries have an independent statistics office and other bodies free of political spin…..

….The z-score is effectively the number of standard deviations the measurement is away from the expected value….

…At the height of the pandemic, the top five in terms of peak z-score were England 42.75 (Wk 15), Spain 34.41 (Wk 14), Belgium 29.91 (Wk 15), Italy 22.16 (Wk 14) and France 21.17 (Wk 14)….

…England is also the worst-performing country on these islands. The peak z-score was 19.71 for Wales (less than half that of England), 8.90 for NI, 7.03 for Scotland and 3.95 for Ireland all in week 15.

What is more frightening, however, is that the English z-score is still around 20 in the latest data – easily the worst in Europe. All other countries are below five. The next highest is Sweden at 4.8.

Something must have gone very badly wrong. In a fast-moving crisis, mistakes will naturally be made by all governments, but HMG seems to have failed on nearly all fronts….

….England is relaxing lockdown at a time the z-score is the highest in Europe without a fit for purpose TTI system in place. The potential for things to go catastrophically wrong is high, and even more so in a potential 2nd wave as summer winds down and people spend more time indoors. If the z-score of 20 is correct, this is only marginally lower than France’s as the height of the pandemic.

Few countries have responded worse than the UK. The major exception has been the US, which under Trump’s leadership has been truly disastrous. As Fintan O’Toole has written, the US is to be pitied rather than envied. This sadly gives some limited cover to HMG. The superiority of the UK’s Covid-19 response to that of the US is evident. Doing less badly than the US may be perceived as a success by many Brexit fans.”

http://www.progressivepulse.org/brexit/covid-19-how-is-the-uk-doing

9 thoughts on “Scotland’s ‘Z Score’ or measure of excess covid mortality is far lower than England”

  1. Just heard Ruth (Panto Dame?) Davidson on SKY assert, without interruption, that deaths in carehomes in Scotland were double those in England. She is not the first Brit Nat to proclaim those figures on the colonial media, or the claim that the NIKE conference was “ground zero” in the infection (this while flights from Wuhan were landing in the UK from Dec right through).
    Time for the SNP to insist on equal time to refute these lies.

    Davidson also was indignant over BritNat media outlets having to apologise for their lies, smears and propaganda. Perhaps if they concentrated on ethical journalistic in stead?

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  5. As the Covid-19 political recriminations are ramped up in Scotland, the ‘factual record’ becomes more and more important. One ‘factual topic’ of relevance is when this new virus, Covid-19 was made a ’notifiable disease’, meaning that medical practitioners become legally required to share patient information with public health authorities when they have reasonable grounds to suspect a patient has coronavirus.

    The UK government added Covid-19 to the list of notifiable diseases within England on 5 March, 2020

    Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/coronavirus-covid-19-listed-as-a-notifiable-disease

    In Public Health England’s ‘Statutory Notifications of Infectious Diseases’ (NOID) report for Week 10 (ending 8 March), there were three recorded notifications of Covid-19, one each in Basingstoke & Deane (Hampshire), Guildford (Surrey) and Shepway (Kent).

    Click to access NOIDS-weekly-report-week10-2020.pdf

    A similar action to make Covid-19 a notifiable disease was taken by the Scottish Government but MUCH EARLIER, the regulation coming into effect on 22 February 2020.

    Source: https://news.gov.scot/news/coronavirus-becomes-notifiable-disease-in-scotland

    I understand that Covid-19 became a notifiable disease on:
    6 March in Wales
    29 February in Northern Ireland
    20 February in the Republic of Ireland.

    By the 5 March, the day the UK government made Covid-19 notifiable in England, Scotland which had acted on this c. 11 days earlier, had a total of just three cases of the virus confirmed according to the Scottish Government’s Covid-19 data dashboard.

    For context on timings of making Covid-19 a notifiable disease in Scotland and England , on 14 February the first European death due to coronavirus happened at a hospital in Paris. The victim was a 80-year-old Chinese tourist. On 23 February in Italy, as the number of cases there reached 150, some Italian cities were shut down. Schools and other public places were closed. The WHO declared Covid-19 a pandemic on 11 March.

    https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/a-timeline-of-major-events-surrounding-the-covid-19-outbreak.html

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  6. N0t trying to be difficult or score points but, if Covid 19 was made a notifiable disease on 22/02/2020, what effect did this have on the Nike cases officially announced on 02/03?

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    1. I’ve been unable to locate a weekly report for Scotland comparable to Public Health England’s weekly ‘Statutory Notifications of Infectious Diseases’ (NOID) reports for ALL notifiable diseases, including now Covid-19. However, this may help address your question.

      The ‘Daily Confirmed Cases’ of Covid-19 in Scotland based on the Scottish Government’s ‘dashboard’ presentation are as follows:

      2 March = 1 (first) case confirmed
      3 March = 0 cases confirmed
      4 March = 2 cases confirmed
      5 March = 3 cases confirmed
      i.e. up to and including 5 March = 6 cumulative cases.

      Source: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/658feae0ab1d432f9fdb53aa082e4130

      According to the WHO’s ‘Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) Situation Report – 40’ – dated 29 February 2020 – the UK had to that date already reported a cumulative total of 20 confirmed Covid-19 cases (including four new cases in the previous 24 hours).

      Based on the WHO’s analysis of available official data at that time, the UK cases were classed in this Situation Report as due to ‘local transmission’ as distinct from ‘imported cases only’.

      Source: https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200229-sitrep-40-covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=849d0665_2

      Using daily WHO Situation Reports, it is possible to track back and forward in time to see how and when the UK’s (and other countries’) reported confirmed cases changed on a day to day basis.

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