As we witness soaring Covid cases up to and beyond the First Wave peak, in the hospitals of England and Wales, but a flattening well below the peak and now a fall in NHS Scotland, I’m reminded of something Andrew Marr said in his interview with Nicola Sturgeon in November:
What about people dying in Scottish care homes? Again, we have gone back to the data and looking at a report by the University of Stirling – 47% of the deaths in Scotland were in care homes. That’s a lot, lot higher than in England where it was 30%.
Leaving aside his obvious lack of understanding of what those figures actually mean there’s an obvious corollary –
53% of the deaths in Scotland were in hospitals. That’s a lot, lot lower than in England where it was 70%?
I know some, but very few, deaths happened in neither care homes nor in hospitals but the conclusion seems reasonable.
There are some contributory facts too. Hospital-acquired Covid infections ran at between 8 and 12 times higher in English hospitals:
Talking-up Scotland / Scottish media fact checking is like shooting fish in a barrel 
John,Do you think all this reporting about Covid on the BBC is a distraction from the balls up of the deal on Brexit,no sign of Ross,Duguid or Bowie on TV defending it Bowie who has a dig at the FM saying she wants a no deal by her MPs not voting for it.
As for Covid they just don’t like to see Scotland doing better than them.
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No sign of Bowie but he is saying ‘she wants a no deal’? Eh?
Everyone knows that the FM is most certainly not wanting a ‘no deal’ and that her government cannot vote for a very very damaging and destructrive, backward, dangerous ‘deal’ where Scotland is concerned.
Has the EngGov involved Scotland’s FM in ANY talks or discussions on what a ‘deal’ should look like? have they hell, Scotland gets diddly squat and a mahoosive kick in the b**ls to boot!
We all know that the BritNats do not want people to know that Scotland is doing much better in all areas of government with the SNP mitigating massive EngGov cuts to the poorest, most vulnerable people in our communities and with Brexit on top of Covid, or vice versa, those cuts are about to hit much much worse. Scotland will be ruined and taken back decades if independence is not secured very very soon. The FM, the SNP AND support for Scottish independence is on the up, it’s now the majority view and preference of the people of Scotland, so get used to it, it’s called democracy!
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It is convenient for them but I guess the journos are just chasing ambulances as they love to do.
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Why has the BBC been telling us over the weekend that medical professionals in Scotland fear that the NHS will be overrun? The implication is that includes hospitals in Scotland where the peek has been flattened. Is this a deliberate attempt at tarring Scotland with the English brush, or is the situation in Scotland no better than England?
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Scotland is doing much, much better at dealing with the virus, as you say, the peak has flattened. Ask anyone not informed if there is such a thing as the ‘UK’ NHS and they will swear it’s true. Saw tweets yesterday from medics in London and the message was, the catastrophe happening there is UK wide, so you get comments from people abroad also believing it’s UK wide and that the dreadful tactics of the EngGov Tories is also UK wide.
They have closed the ‘Nightingale’ hospitals in England, spent £millions, didn’t even kit them out, so closed them due to lack of ‘staff’. Scotland did not close them down, hence, if, and let’s hope not, they are needed for huge spike in cases, it’s available. Scottish NHS is better funded and better staffed, and student nurses still get a bursary, they do not in England, and many are unable to pay their bills etc while slogging their guts out to try get their qualifications.
Scotland IS doing much better, the EngGov and media so called just will not ever let people know that. It’s just not cricket is it.
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The issues in care homes during the first wave, certainly merits examination, and, as you have pointed out, some has been done and some of the key factors have been identified. The deaths and the isolation, have, undoubtedly caused a lot of sadness in the community for those who have lost family or have seen them deteriorate because of loss of regular contacts.
However, very early on, the media, the care home owners and damnably, the trade unions and some left wing groups in Scotland leapt on single data – such as the percentage of overall deaths – to blame the SG and to take it as an indication that the SG was handling things no better than Westminster was doing in England. This attack seems to have stemmed largely from the fact that during the first wave confidence in the SG and the FM was very high and markedly different from confidence in Westminster and the PM and that these high ratings and the significant disparity with Johnson et al were mirrored in England. People in England believed the SG and FM were trustworthy. This appears to have panicked the media and, particularly, the smugly self-proclaimed ‘progressive’ media like New Statesman and Guardian and so Scotland’s performance had to be damned by faint praise and/or denigrated in the UK media. For the Scottish media attacking Holyrood is what they have been doing relentlessly since 1999.
As far as Westminster and the media is concerned the fact that the handling of the pandemic by the SG has led more people to believe that Scotland could, indeed, manage its own affairs satisfactorily has spooked them and, as the nasty Marr interview showed, trying to shove Scotland back into its lowly state is more important than the problems caused by the pandemic.
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My cousin works in a council run care home in NE England, caught Covid19 from her work. Luckily recovered OK. England is a mess.
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Radio2 1.30pm onwards . . . . . Covid . . . Started off lumping Scotland in with NI . . . That our NHS is in danger if being over run.
Then focused on England, the (unusually open and honest) presenter put it to a medical Professional (Dr.?) that already there are more cases in Hospital now than at the height of the first wave, and as new infections are high , with a two week lag before some will require hospitalisation he was asked. “Is the NHS in danger of being over run?”. . . . His guarded response was that some hospitals are close to their limits ( my words).
Worth a listen if it is put up on iPlayer
The BBC are trying to frighten their English audience into treating the pandemic seriously.
Whilst lumping us in with them.
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‘BBC trying to frighten people in England to treat the pandemic seriously’, quite something when the state run media have to do that job.
They of course do the opposite in Scotland, BBC; no problem, what’s the panic, get the pubs and gyms open, throw caution to the cold cold north British wind, go on, live dangerously, do it for yourselves, don’t listen to that dictator Nicla!
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I take your point John but suspect most folk gave up on this numbers game long before Marr revisited it, excess death comparisons became the only analysis tool which made any sense, particularly with Govid Snake Inc and Barnard Castle Specsavers in control.
Marr’s retrospective smear attempt went down like a ton of bricks anyway, immediately joining Nick (he said nothing) Robinson and James (I’ve seen the email) Cook on the “unemployable” sofa.
PQ tried sending Cook for away until the stooshie died down, but as soon as his fizog reappeared on TV the “lyin wee shite” alarms went off, nobody would believe him as a weather-forecaster.
Public trust is a precious thing yet the BBC squandered it for a bunch of Etonian charlatans, meanwhile in Scotland the HMS Sarah and Cutting Wark are sinking fast…
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