The UK lock-down was put into effect on 23rd March. In the Telegraph, yesterday and repeated widely by opposition politicians and journalists, including BBC Reporting Scotland: More than 2,000 coronavirus deaths could have been prevented if Scotland had locked down two weeks earlier [9th March], according to a study published as Nicola Sturgeon urged people to ignore Boris Johnson’s exit plan. A team of epidemiological scientists at Edinburgh University estimated that around four out of five deaths could have been stopped with earlier action, based on the behaviour of the Scottish population. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/05/11/four-five-scottish-covid-19-deaths-prevented-lockdown-had-started/ The scientists and the media missed something … Continue reading Fact-check: Scottish Government COULD NOT have locked down earlier to save lives

Once more BBC Scotland report on the Skye care home infections and deaths without reference to the November 2019-January 2020 Care Inspectorate inspection report which demanded that the owners do something about the staffing level and the unavoidably connected failures in infection control. Crucially by March 2020, the demands had not been addressed to their satisfaction. https://www.careinspectorate.com/index.php/care-services?detail=CS2011300714 Astonishingly given the evidence of the report and local reports of agency staff from England being brought in, this statement goes unchallenged: Owners HC-One said the “likelihood” was that Covid-19 had been present in the local community. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-52631708 Who accused BBC Scotland of … Continue reading BBC Scotland accused of cover-up as Skye care home owners blame the locals

The latest ONS mortality statistics for England and Wales show that 237 health and care workers and 47 teachers have been killed by the coronavirus up to 23 April – deaths in the three weeks since are not included. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/causesofdeath/datasets/coronaviruscovid19relateddeathsbyoccupationenglandandwales In Scotland: As at 5 May, we have been notified by Health Boards or the Care Inspectorate of 7 deaths of healthcare workers and 6 deaths of social care workers, related to COVID-19. We are not able to confirm how many of these staff contracted COVID-19 through their work.  https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-daily-data-for-scotland/ The UK has 12.6 times the population of Scotland so, pro rata, we might … Continue reading The sad reality of PPE failure? Deaths among England and Wales’ health and care workers 73% higher than in Scotland

You have to read some way in to find that the accusation below comes only from Ian Murray, Tory MP for Morningside. Here’s what the FM had to say: Why would we have been trying to cover anything up? We were reporting figures on this. I stood up here every single day to be open and transparent with you, the public, as possible. There is no interest in covering these things up, so that is nonsense. And actually, I don’t know where that accusation comes from, but it sounds like highly politicised nonsense as well. To say that cases were associated with … Continue reading For highly politicised nonsense you can trust to be highly politicised nonsense, support the Herald

Former Brexit candidate, Dr Stuart Waiton in the Herald today: WHEN the police in Scotland are asking for clarification about the arrest policy for those daring to go to a drive-through Costa coffee, you know you’re in trouble. The Stay at Home slogan has become a mantra, a script repeated hundreds of times a day, by the Scottish Government and their experts, but also by every second advert on TV. My local radio station even has its own Stay at Home jingle, just in case we’d forgotten. As with the Labour and Tory politicians who write undercover for the Herald and Scotsman, Waiton’s … Continue reading Herald gives ‘Far-right’ Brexit candidate platform to attack ‘Stay at home’ message

I know, I’ve mixed a bit of George Lucas in with a dash of Philip Pulman there but, hey, so what? In the Clickbait Herald today ‘British Irish Investigative Journalist’, Neil Mackay: It’s repellent to behold. Power and ambition seem more important than keeping the party of government united at a time of national crisis. Labour and the Tories are doing less to undermine the FM than some on her own side. What is Mackay thinking when he writes this kind of thing? He knows it’s not even remotely true. All he has is a handful of senior, or once … Continue reading Herald’s Neil Mackay tipped as new Darth Vader after star performance with his dark materials

In a Survation poll on 16th to 23rd April, those at Occupation Level 1 and 2 were the most likely to highly trust the UK Government to provide them with information on Covid-19 (57.2%) while those at levels 3 and 4 were the least likely to do so (47.6%, 49.3%). The levels are not defined. https://www.survation.com/survation-covid-19-public-attitude-tracker/ In an Opinium poll on 5th May, the week when the UK became the country with Europe’s highest coronavirus death toll, car-owning professionals were the group most likely to approve of Boris Johnson’s leadership (56%) while the non-car-owning working class group were the least … Continue reading Are the UK’s upper classes willing to risk the lives of manual workers?

By Sam: What was also ignored by the BBC was the decision by the UK government to allow the importation from abroad without any checks whatever of covid 19 carriers. This paragraph is damning of the UK government’s failure: “From a statistical point of view, the probability of physically encountering the novel coronavirus or of being exposed to infected individuals in large international airports or in the cabins of airplanes is much higher than in homes, workplaces, schools or other public spaces. These pandemic simulations show that large international airports and airplane cabins are major sources of risk, and are … Continue reading Scottish Government’s early attempts to stem flow of infected air travellers ignored by BBC

We have no reason to be surprised when BBC Scotland does not talk truth to power. The programme last night had two fatal flaws. First it did not investigate the power and access to information differential between the UK and Scottish governments and it did not investigate the powerful global corporations milking the Scottish care sector and responsible for the massive failure there to staff properly and to control infection. Daly does mention in passing, the SAGE meetings at which CMOs and chief scientific advisers from the devolved administrations could only listen in, could not ask questions and instead had … Continue reading ‘Scotland’s Lockdown’: A whitewash for the powerful and an attempt to blame the Scottish Government

By brenda steele: Put these three facts together and the new Boris plan should worry us all: Many people who have Covid19 are Asymptomatic. The UK Government approach was justified by the many similarities between SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2, including high genetic relatedness, transmission primarily through respiratory droplets, and the frequency of lower respiratory symptoms (fever, cough, and shortness of breath) with both infections developing a median of 5 days after exposure. However, despite the deployment of similar control interventions, the trajectories of the two epidemics have veered in dramatically different directions. Within 8 months, SARS was controlled after SARS-CoV-1 had infected … Continue reading England risks a Second Wave of Death