The former head of communications for the Scottish Conservatives, presenting himself as just a journalist, is paid to present a report on the efficacy of lockdowns. There’s not a trace of any evidence.
He writes pompously:
It took me seconds to find this from highly-respected, high impact research journal, the BMJ Global Health, published two years ago:
Is the cure really worse than the disease? The health impacts of lockdowns during COVID-19
Summary box
- Restrictive non-pharmaceutical interventions against COVID-19 (known as ‘lockdowns’) are associated with health harms
- However, it is challenging to determine whether lockdowns have caused the harms or whether these harms are a direct consequence of the underlying health disaster of the pandemic
- Careful analysis of excess mortality suggests that lockdowns are not associated with large numbers of deaths in places that avoided large COVID-19 epidemics (eg, Australia, New Zealand)
- This evidence must be weighed against the very severe harms caused by COVID-19 itself, as seen for example in Brazil and India
- It is unlikely that government interventions have been worse than the pandemic itself in most situations using data collected to date
Following up on the reference to India, this research published in 2023 confirms that India’s failure to lockdown in the way neighbouring Bangladesh had, resulted in mass deaths:
I feel sure Maciver can understand this kind of thing, could he be bothered to find and report it, in the interests of the audience he expects income from.
Just crap really and dangerous. I despair.
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
Those of a right wing political persuasion will always put profits before people and you don’t have to be a medical professional to understand that virus transmission depends on human to human contact.
The more contact,the greater transmission and in the the pre vaccine days,the greater number of deaths.
This was understood by everyone except those who chose not to for largely political reasons.
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As long as Nicola Sturgeon – and no-one in the Tory Government of the time – is blamed for the Covid deaths, then the media and unionists will be happy.
And, sadly, a number of people who claim to be supporters of independence.
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Indeed. She might be criticized for many things (and usually is!) but she is one of the very few political leaders who can hold their head up high and know that she did her best with the available scientific evidence at the time.
I really do hope she tears them a new one at the enquiries.
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Argh! INquiries
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Given the evidence presented to the Inquiry already and the extent of the criticisms of Boris & Co it is clear Tories and their media chums are trying desperately to mitigate the public anger and political fallout that will inevitably ensue by implying that the ‘herd’ immunty proposed by Johnson and his cohorts was possibly the right course to take. Absolutely despicable people and anyone still believing the Tories are concerned about their welfare needs urgent mental treatment.
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I think we ALL knew what conclusions would be ‘created’ to lay blame on both the former FM and too the Scottish government’s handling of the pandemic……and where no accountability or responsibility would be referred to via the media here, or others, in Scotland on the powers the UK government had OVER our government for the UK as a whole during the pandemic…..
Alas that is the option always preferred by a media here (and others here too) that fails to fulfil the task they, as a profession, are supposed to attain as a media within Scotland…..instead they are more concerned with swaying public opinion against both the SNP and too independence while also failing to dedicate the same time and effort to highlight the many flaws and failures connected to a UK government that holds reserved powers that impact us in Scotland….including those powers they held during the pandemic.
The BBC in Scotland, in their news output via Reporting Scotland, prefer to also rely upon Vox pops via citizens opinions as somehow a testimony of public opinion on both the SNP and too upon matters that they have been involved with…… while we as viewers are ignorant of what knowledge these individuals who are interviewed have and too their individual political preferences that have formed their perhaps uninformed or partisan opinions….. via those specific citizens that THEY, the BBC here, CHOOSE to select to broadcast in their programme………included as part of the stitch up we see happening via the BBC as an integral part of the BIG stitch up within a UK dominated by Pro UK bias from various sources ……which drown out OUR voices and too WHO we support and that which we support also …..independence.
Boak inducing is it not……but we here in Scotland are forced to swallow it….WHY ?
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Apologies if this is too soon to go O/T!
The main UK page of the BBC News website today has a link to an article with this headline: ‘Prof Sir Chris Whitty says UK faces rural and coastal ageing crisis’ It also appears within the site’s Health section.
The first sentence in the BBC article states: ‘The UK faces an ageing crisis and healthcare must step in, England’s chief medical officer, Prof Sir Chris Whitty, warns in his annual report.’ His report includes both data analysis and policy recommendations.
There is a link to the CMO’s report given in the BBC’s text. It takes you to a page with this heading: ‘Collection: Chief Medical Officer (CMO): annual reports’ on the gov. uk website. The intro to the ‘Collection’ states: ‘In their annual report, the CMO presents information or ‘surveillance’ about the health of England’s population to the government. The CMO may give recommendations to government, and individual organisations, to make improvements to the public health system.’
There is a further link to the CMO’s latest report published on 10 November, 2023. As the web page makes explicit right upfront, the report ‘Applies to England’!
Featuring in the UK and Health sections of the BBC News website, this report which ‘Applies to England’ does NOT feature in the site’s England section. For a public service broadcaster that makes much of its commitments to ‘nations and regions’ in its corporate documents, the BBC follows some very odd editorial practices!
But before we leave the topic, its worth noting one example of similar ‘confusion’ evident in the CMO’s own official report. On Page 3 of the full report there is this: ‘However, UK census data from 2021 show that around eight in ten people aged over 90 years were not living in care homes and less than 4% of those aged 80 to 84 were in care homes.2’
The data source (2) referred to in the sentence is an ONS document dated 9 October, 2023 entitled ‘Older people living in care homes in 2021 and changes since 2011’. The ‘main points’ of this ONS document states: ‘There were 278,946 people aged 65 years and over living in a care home in England and Wales, accounting for 82.1% of all care home residents.’
How could it state anything other? There could be no census date for the UK, as the CMO’s report claims, as Scotland’s census was not undertaken until 2022!
England = UK = England: so deeply engrained!
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McIver is playing his part in the Tory propaganda campaign to cast doubt in the public mind over what has arisen and will continue to arise from the Covid Inquiry.
In the second paragraph he attempts to do a Braverman by implying bias by the Inquiry.
OT on the subject of Braverman – Had her parents been fans of Coronation Street rather than Dallas, we might currently be disgusted by an Elsie Tanner Braverman, or would that likewise have been abbreviated to Eltan…
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The sooner we rid ourselves of these buffoons the better
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