In the Scotsman today, former Blair Government minister and sacked editor of the West Highland Free Press, Brian Wilson, is trying to sell bad vibrations on the pandemic experience in Scotland and rUK.
In particular, he offers this barefaced lie and this deliberate confusion of the meaning of data
Throughout the country, there were 220,000 Covid-related deaths with Scotland’s losses roughly proportionate.
Almost half the Scottish deaths took place in care homes and answers will continue to be required here, just as in the rest of the UK.
So, on the first claim, it’s once again like shooting fish in a barrel. By January 2022:
The death rate per 100 000 population, over the whole pandemic, was 181.7 in Scotland and 230.8, in England (https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/deaths), 49.1 more for every100 000.
Had Scotland’s pandemic been managed by the UK Government, 2 671 (49.1 x 54.4) more might have died.
Had England’s pandemic been managed by the SNP Government, 27 496 (49.1 x 560) fewer might have died.
Again, I appreciate that other variables such as geography, age and ethnicity will have been influential but had it been the other way round, with Scotland more affected than England, such comments would be quickly condemned as excuses.
On the second statement:
The above graph revealing starkly the cost in lives of the failure in England to fully implement the JCVI guidance and vaccinate care home residents before all other groups was compiled by Na Sirf Musiqi https://twitter.com/nasirfmusiqi from official sources.
It’s a story never told on MSM. It’s a far greater sin than wasting money on wallpaper.
This shows the impact of the vaccinations as the began to confer immunity on many in Scottish care homes from the middle of January 2021:
Another story never told.
If you need to see evidence directly from the government sources, here it is:
From the 1st of January 2021 until the 26th February, 9 088 care home residents in England died from confirmed Covid-19.
From the 1st of January 2021 until the 28th February, 532 care home residents in Scotland died from confirmed Covid-19.
England has ten times the population so pro-rata might have been expected to have ten times as many deaths, 5 320, but had around 3 700 more.
Had NHS England, followed the JCVI advice and vaccinated care home residents as a priority above all others, 3 700 lives might have been saved.
Who told them not to follow the JCVI advice? Who told NHS Scotland to follow it?
We know. Will the UK media tell everyone else?
Sources:
And from the same sources in March 2021:
The appalling costs of the the UK Government’s decision not to vaccinate all care home residents as a first priority, as advised by the experts at the JCCVI, continue to be felt.
In the last 7 days, 252 deaths were recorded by NHS England in care homes. With a tenth of the population, Scotland might have expected to have 25 but in fact had only 11.
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
It’s a relentless battle just trying to put the record right.
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But look on the bright side. Their constant twisting of the facts allows us to put the record straight and, in many cases, get publicity via Twitter/BTL comments etc, for achievements/policies etc that the MSM had ignored as part of their pro-union/ SNP Bad agenda.
The Unionists of course think they are being clever by behaving as Wilson has done but are too thick to realise that these attacks give us the chance to get the truth out there.
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Brian Wilson has a history when it comes to outright porkies. I remember a couple of years back two articles where he claimed that land reform legislation stopped after 2003, thus brazenly pretending that the Community Empowerment Act of 2015 and the the Land Reform Act of 2016 didn’t exist.
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I don’t think we should shy away from recognising in hindsight the flaws to the plan of decanting folk from hospitals to care-homes, nor should we be shy in identifying where that advice came from, the most respected specialists in the UK at the time.
The vaccination round per JCVI advice was much later in the pandemic, but again using the best advice available in the UK.
You are correct to say that it was only in England where they veered from that advice in what appears to have been a macabre ‘race’ to garner political headlines over numbers.
I have no problem in accepting things went wrong over the pandemic in Scotland, but Wilson’s refusal to accept Scotland fared better in terms of lives lost than England is reprehensible.
Given the BBC’s recent attempt to revive their QUEH story, are we going to see more dead donkeys such as Brian Wilson dug up in advance of an early GE ?
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Having just read Wilson’s article https://archive.ph/4h21q it’s fairly obvious he is more interested in tarnishing the Scottish Inquiry before it begins by dragging out red herrings to distract from the UK Inquiry –
– “the notorious Nike conference in Edinburgh yielded the UK’s first Covid outbreak and the public was not even told” – This is the Labour media version from the time, but as far removed from the reality of the incident as it is possible to be.
– Likewise his interpretation on what the “Auditor General found in 2021”, ditto the exchange with Neil Findlay over Care Home discharges, etc..
His most egregious distortion is in implying that because SG put the UK ‘expert’ guidance at the start of the pandemic into Scots Law, that it then became an SG initiative by dint of responsibility is stretching credibility.
Yes, the public and the bereaved deserve answers, and the Inquiry will without doubt deliver them.
But Wilson peddling the Labour “line” does nothing to assist in that process.
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