In the Herald today:
SCOTLAND has “missed” more than 70,000 tests in the past two weeks as concerns persist about the nation’s vital test, trace and isolate strategy that is due to go live tomorrow. It comes as the Royal College of Nursing Scotland, has told ministers it had noted the “increasing divergence” in testing policy between the Scottish and UK government and believed that the nation “needs to match England” on the extent of testing.
How did the RCNS tell ministers? in some ‘note put forward and seen by the Herald.’ Why on earth would such a thing not be published? Why can’t we see the whole text? Why did the RCNS not post it on their website? Is it possible, the RCNS is much happier with what is happening in Scotland that the Herald extract suggests?
What are these ‘missed tests?’ It’s not that clear in the writing but I think they mean the tests that could have been carried out to use up the full capacity in place. Is that just a tad misleading?
As for this ‘matching England‘, does the RCNS, or anybody for that matter, believe anything on testing, coming from England? We’ve already seen reports of targets being met by double-counting and the counting of tests merely posted as it they were tests completed.
As for the reliability of mass testing:
Research has found as many as 29% of swab tests on infected people come back negative:
Why would that matter? A false negative sends the nurse back in to affect many.
From the Department of Health and Social Care, to ‘match England’:
An unreliable test is worse than no test.
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
On Call KayE this am. Prof. Jason Leitch said if we could test everyone in Scotland on one day he wouldn’t want it done, because you only test for a reason. It was put to him that Wu han in China was going to test the entire population over a week. The prof. Said he could see no clinical reason for this.
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Jason leitch is a dentist. NOT an epidemiogist. So who cares what he thinks.
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He’s got a Masters in Public Health, that qualifies him to give advice on the pandemic.
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Excellent and timely advice Alex to young people thinking of going to university to study a course that leads to a profession such as dentistry, medicine, vet medicine, accountancy, law -perhaps others.
So taking what Alex says, the advice is: choose very carefully because once you’ve chosen and entered that profession you will be stuck in it for the rest of your days. If you do expand your skills and experience through additional education, skills training, work experience etc. you are wasting your time. You will always be just what you started out as and, as Alex advises, who will (should) care what you think.
Sage advice!
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Full disclosure of the content of the facts is vital and anything else is misleading which is a very old Tory trick!
The people of Scotland are not as stupid as the media make out!!
Publish the full facts from the RCNS report and let the public decide in the truth! Journalism should be informative not misleading and eventually Scotland will achieve independence and any rag that has hindered the people of Scotland will go myself and many more like me will campaign for this!! Put the facts in as they should be!! For the survival of your rag!
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I don’t trust statements from any Trades Union who’s Scottish Organisers rely on the subs from the rest of its members in the UK to pay their wages.
They have a personal bias in seeing the Union survive (see GMB for example).
RCNS should be forced to explain how this was communicated, to whom and to publish this communication (unredacted) in the public domain.
And if it is another EssEnnPeeBaaad ‘exclusive’ with no substance from the Herald the RCNS should make a statement decrying it and distancing themselves from such obvious propaganda!
The RCNS never seem to argue about the “increasing divergence” in Nurses pay rates in SNHS and for the “need to match England”!
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Nor about the fact student nurses have their tuition fees paid by the SG and receive a bursary of £8,000 pa or so which will soon be £10,000. Nor do they acknowledge that the number of student nurses has increased year on year since 2012 and for the academic year 2019-20 ithe first year intake was 4006
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When England sends out 50,000 sampling kits via the Royal Mail to people who have requested a test then they count those 50,000 sample kits in that day’s tally of tests done!!
Sampling kits contain swabs which are used to take samples from the nose and throat, bar coded name labels, vials containing fluids into which the swabs must be placed after sampling, return address labels and envelope.
Some of the sample kits have not contained return address labels so the whole thing is thrown in the bucket. Some people find it difficult to take a sample so abandon the whole thing. Some take the sample but don’t get enough material so test is useless. Some people take the sample but when they break the swab at the marked spot they find it is still too long and they cannot screw on the lid of the vial properly so by the time it is returned to the lab the fluid has leaked out. Some people dont put the label on properly leading to delays at the testing centre.
How many of the 50,000 tests sent out actually result in a viable, useable sample? England has reached its 100,000 target but not every day since the end of April which was the target date to reach 100,000 tests per day.
Technical difficulties at some of the mega labs in England have led to tens of thousands of samples being sent to the USA in chartered planes for testing
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Sending tests to the USA sounds totally safe re data etc…not. If a persons details are included with the tests, and you’d think that might be necessary, then those details of said persons would be out there, which imo is not a great idea!
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Article seems to be missing now. 404. No basis in fact? no tweets from S RCN on the subject.
Looks like fake news
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Herald article
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18477043.fears-test-trace-70-000-missing-tests-two-weeks/
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Thanks for the link.
You really do have to admire The Herald’s ‘framing’.
The article contains a graph of the number of Covid-19 cases in Scotland over the period 14 March to 25 May. It has the caption “How fast has Scotland’s positive Covid-19 cases been RISING?” (my emphasis)
The graph shows that since early April, the number of positive cases has been on a steep downward trend. Now the caption could have focused on case numbers falling: that, today is the ‘newsworthy’ angle not the historic rate of rise. Deliberate, malign .. perhaps a minor example but indicative of ‘house’ style and engrained newsroom instinct?
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The big political issue is not whether Dom Com will resign/be dismissed. I forecast last year that he would have to resign this year.
The big political issue is whether Alex Cole-Hamilton will be able to successfully complete a covid19 test, if he has to take one or whether he will lose his ticket.
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This journalist,Martin Williams does not inspire confidence. Nor does S RCN.
“Journalist at Scotland’s The Herald with bohemian take on news & sport. Deadly serious about music. And trying to keep smiling through the corona nightmare ”
and also tweets
“Tip. Make marathons more entertaining by standing at the side of the road handing out bottles full of gin & tonic.”
The RCN concerns for members is understandable but it seems unnecessary for routine testing of health care staff to be done.
“Our data suggest that routine screening of all health care workers without symptoms may not be necessary whilst infection rates in the general population are falling. If they begin to rise again, regular testing of health care workers irrespective of symptoms should be considered to protect these key workers and their patients.”
https://www.itv.com/news/2020-05-07/study-begins-into-how-coronavirus-spreads-and-why-some-people-are-more-affected-than-others/
Widespread testing without focus runs the risk of helping to spread the virus. The test the Scottish government is using has a high sensitivity, 91%. That leaves room for error.
https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1808
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