Professor John Robertson OBA

I have the above, not from reading scriptures of any religion, though the notion is in more than one, I remember it, I think, from the film ‘Schindler’s List.’

It came into my head after asking the question, in the light of the current and historical attacks on Nicola Sturgeon over her school closedowns and strict face mask-wearing edicts:

How many children of school age died of Covid in Scotland England Wales between 2020 and 2022

The answer was:

• England – 23
• Wales – 1
• Scotland – 1

I’m a little ashamed to say, I thought, at first, there’s no point reporting these very small figures and that if the English data had been per head the same in Scotland, we’d have not 1 but 2 deaths.

Then mulling them over, the above quote popped into my head and I thought what if the one was your child and you knew that Scotland had pulled back on school lockdowns and face mask-wearing in schools as many critics argued for.

Sometimes statistics don’t matter.

Mind you, perhaps if Scotland’s stricter and longer school lockdowns and face mask wearing had been adopted in England, 11 or 12 might have lived?

AND, in Scotland we don’t know how many children were actually saved. It might have been more, several more than the 2 predicted by comparison with England.