He’s got the look. He means business.
Is this Macwhirter’s model? Conrad Black said something like ‘If the little man thinks the newspapers are his friends then the little man is in more trouble than I thought.’

Scotland has had no deaths for a whole month now and a far lower infection rate for several months, than almost any other country in the world, evidence below, but Iain Macwhirter insists on lingering over and lying about the first bloody phase when the 4 Nations approach denied Scotland the information or the legal and fiscal autonomy to diverge:

In the above comparison of 14 ‘advanced’ nations on 22 July, with reasonably reliable data, Scotland is one of the least infected of all. Levels have risen since then everywhere even in New Zealand.

Only those small independent countries, not tied to a neighbour’s maniacal political leadership, Norway and Ireland had done better, but not significantly more so. With similar populations, they had 7 day averages of 6.7 and 10 cases per day compared to our 12.3. Scotland’s figure was recently around 7 or 8 before Aberdeen.

The graph above has a logarithmic scale so the numbers in the box are more useful for comparisons.

These are not per capita figures so it was possible that some of the larger countries might have rates closer to that in Scotland. However, some quick arithmetic shows that to be not the case except for Italy, with 10 times the population of Scotland but only 16 times the number of cases and Germany with 15 times the population and ‘only’ 33 times the case level.

Most of the larger countries had much larger case levels than Scotland per capita. England has 10 times the population but 43 times the case level. The USA has 60 times the population but more than 5 000 times as many cases per day.

Deaths:

https://www.travellingtabby.com/uk-coronavirus-tracker/

When it comes to deaths, Scotland’s achievement is remarkable. Since then our 7 day average has fallen from 0.1 to 0.

Northern Ireland came close with the same 7 day average of 0.1 at the end of July but based on a much smaller population and with the advantage of a sea barrier between it and England.

Ireland and Norway with similar populations have a death rate 3 times higher as do Germany with a population 15 times higher and a death rate 49 times higher and Spain, with a population 8.5 times higher and a death rate 23 times higher.

Things are much more dramatic, tragic, when we compare the deaths rates in England and the USA.

England has 10 times the population but 676 times the daily death level! The USA has 60 times the population but nearly 8 000 times as many deaths per day.

As for ‘neglecting care homes’, I’ll keep it brief.

It wasn’t ‘us’. The UK lock-down delayed by advice from SAGE that we need not worry about care homes was far too late. The virus was spread in care homes primarily by agency staff [evidence available] required in such numbers because of corporate greed, poverty wages and insecure conditions.

And, anyway, the death toll in Scottish care homes was significantly lower. To point out the facts is not a boast:

https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2020/08/10/excess-care-home-deaths-25-higher-in-england-and-wales-than-in-scotland/