By stewartb:
It’s important to put the message out there, and strongly! The claims by BBC Scotland and certain opposition politicians in Scotland that the ‘Nike conference’ in Edinburgh was the source of Scotland’s coronavirus epidemic have been amplified in the wider media relentlessly for days. Now that scientific evidence is available that there was no ‘ground zero’, will this get anything like the same coverage? Aye right!
On 9 June the University of Glasgow’s website reported on new research by its staff on Covid-19. The article states:
“Scientists sequencing the virus samples from the first confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Scotland have determined multiple introductions, mainly from European countries such as Italy, Austria and Spain – and showed that Scotland’s first introductions of the virus likely occurred prior to the country’s first confirmed case on March 1st.”
Based on analyses of full genome sequences of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, Emma Thomson, Professor of Infectious Diseases at the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research, states “Our study confirms SARS-CoV-2 entered the Scottish population through at least 113 separate travel-related introductions, leading to multiple clusters of sustained community transmission. We identified viral lineages with no link to travel as early as three days after the first detection of infection, indicating earlier introduction to Scotland and community spread before the first detected case.”
These confirmed travel-associated introductions of SARS-CoV-2 into Scotland predated both UK travel restrictions and extensive restrictions in other European countries. The article also notes: “A dramatic shift from travel-associated to sustained community transmission was apparent from the 11th of March, 10 days after the first detected case.”
And travel-associated introductions around the same time were not restricted to Scotland. Other collaborative work involving the University of Edinburgh on large-scale virus genome sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 across the UK has also just been published.
It concludes:
- “the UK epidemic comprises a very large number of importations due to inbound international travel. We detect 1,356 independently-introduced transmission lineages, however, we expect this number to be an under-estimate.”
- “.. estimate that ≈34% of detected UK transmission lineages arrived via inbound travel from Spain, ≈29% from France, ≈14% from Italy, and ≈23% from other countries.”
- based on statistical modelling, the researchers estimate that “80% of the importation events that give rise to detectable UK transmission lineages occurred between 28th February and 29th March 2020 (the remaining 20% of imports occurred before or after these dates).”
The paper notes that until the beginning of March, the UK received ≈1.75m inbound travellers per week. The estimated global prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 rose rapidly in March. Notably there was a period in mid-March when inbound travel to the UK was still substantial and coincided with high numbers of active cases elsewhere.
The graph below from the same paper shows the estimated total number of inbound travellers to UK per day (black line) and the estimated number of infectious cases worldwide (dashed red line):
Final comment
On 10 May the TuSC – by using common sense, by having some perspective, by putting things in context, whatever you want to call it – challenged the notion that one could attribute the origin (the ‘ground-zero’) of the coronavirus epidemic in Scotland to one identifiable individual, to one Nike employee.
Now comes the integrity test: who will acknowledge and amplify the scientific rebuttal? Who will come clean with the public – weazel words will not suffice: ‘we got it wrong – actually we had no evidence for our claim: there was no ‘ground zero’ in Edinburgh!
Talking-up Scotland 
I guess the big issue here is, WHY do the Britnats in Scotland ( we know why really) revel in COVID19 deaths in Scotland. What is their agenda? What do they hope to gain?
They are in constant project fear mode, and they have the compliant Britnat media
and the likes of virilently anti SNP journalists like S. Smith, to literally air their own opinions on state funded television.
Scotland is doing brilliantly against huge odds, many more odds than other countries have to contend with, all more poignant at this crucially important time of try to save lives, support people out of work, support small businesses, and ‘get on with the day job’ ( no mean feat at the best of times while shackled to the ‘UK’ so called) at the same time!
Here is an interesting article about the possible origins of Covid19, and the political motivations and implications of keeping quiet about it. It’s a long read, but worth it, many things to consider, and extremely concerning in general.
I guess the big issue here is, WHY do the Britnats in Scotland ( we know why really) revel in COVID19 deaths in Scotland. What is their agenda? What do they hope to gain?
They are in constant project fear mode, and they have the compliant Britnat media
and the likes of virilently anti SNP journalists like S. Smith, to literally air their own opinions on state funded television.
Scotland is doing brilliantly against huge odds, many more odds than other countries have to contend with, all more poignant at this crucially important time of try to save lives, support people out of work, support small businesses, and ‘get on with the day job’ ( no mean feat at the best of times while shackled to the ‘UK’ so called) at the same time!
Here is an interesting article about the possible origins of Covid19, and the political motivations and implications of keeping quiet about it. It’s a long read, but worth it, many things to consider, and extremely concerning in general.
I guess the big issue here is, WHY do the Britnats in Scotland ( we know why really) revel in COVID19 deaths in Scotland. What is their agenda? What do they hope to gain?
They are in constant project fear mode, and they have the compliant Britnat media
and the likes of virilently anti SNP journalists like S. Smith, to literally air their own opinions on state funded television.
Scotland is doing brilliantly against huge odds, many more odds than other countries have to contend with, all more poignant at this crucially important time of try to save lives, support people out of work, support small businesses, and ‘get on with the day job’ ( no mean feat at the best of times while shackled to the ‘UK’ so called) at the same time!
Here is an interesting article about the possible origins of Covid19, and the political motivations and implications of keeping quiet about it. It’s a longish read, but worth it, many things to consider, and extremely concerning in general.
https://www.independentsciencenews.org/health/the-case-is-building-that-covid-19-had-a-lab-origin/
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How weird looks like I have repeated this several times…crikey sorry, no idea how that happened! Well, maybe going on repeat is what we need lol!
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If it’s worth saying it’s worth saying twice!
If it’s worth saying it’s worth saying twice!If it’s worth saying it’s worth saying twice!If it’s worth saying it’s worth saying twice!If it’s worth saying it’s worth saying twice!If it’s worth saying it’s worth saying twice!If it’s worth saying it’s worth saying twice!If it’s worth saying it’s worth saying twice!If it’s worth saying it’s worth saying twice!If it’s worth saying it’s worth saying twice!If it’s worth saying it’s worth saying twice!If it’s worth saying it’s worth saying twice!
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Murray has nothing whatsoever to do with Health in Scotland beyond that of being a citizen.
If he wants to hold the Scottish government to account,he should stand for election to Holyrood.
How would the Irish or the Germans feel about him spouting his nonsense in their daily press accusing them of a cover up and incompetence.
Of course,their press wouldn’t give him the time of day because he has nothing whatsoever to do with their health systems.
Another union dividend.
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Lord Haw Haw (Murray)
Just like his real counterpart in WW2
Will spew out his verbal diarrhoea till his bitter end no matter what
Even now his union sand castles are rapidly being swept away by the rising tide of increasing Indy support
But his reality is a Ermine Coat such is the power of delusional ambitions
Some one point him to the history of such persons who were the lackeys of past colonial powers and what became of them
Once their yoke was thrown off a place in hell is reserved and awaits him
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Lord Hee-Haw more like.
‘cos that is all he can offer Scotland.
😉
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The dishonourable Mr Murray is the new Ruthie. We will have to get used to seeing his big round face on every agitprop occasion our colonial media can horn-shoe him into.
The truth no longer matters. As we move toward indyref2—– lies, propaganda and personal gutter smears will become the “argument” used for the “Union”.
We will have to toughen up, and adopt the same tactics. Give as good as we get. Call out bias when it occurs. An instant rebuttal unit would be a GOOD THING.
Buy a good dog chew so you have something to bite on—-dentists may not be available for a while!
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Well they have all been rather busy lately with Mr Murray, polishing anal teeth is no easy task…
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Those figures certainly are an underestimate. I travelled home from Australia on 31st March and my own Covid-19 history dates from there.
When testing became available (March?), my GP was unable to refer me for testing as I hadn’t been to China or Italy nor been in known contact with a known case.
I had been in Chinatown in Melbourne for the New Year fireworks. I later discovered that many Chinese Melbournians travel home to see family in China then come to Chinatown’s celebrations. The first case known in Australia had done exactly that on the day, or day before, I was there. I suspect he wasn’t the only one who had brought the virus back from China that week.
Apologies to all, I unwittingly brought Covid-19 to you all long before Nike’s conference.
I hope that doesn’t make me ground zero 😳
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