Imagine you’re a researcher for BBC Scotland and you’ve been asked to find someone to speak on pandemic control. You find Professor Devi Sridhar of Edinburgh University’s 12-strong Global Health Governance Programme: http://globalhealthgovernance.org/team-1 Eight of the team do research into infectious diseases for, amongst others, the World Bank and the World Health Organisation. Professor Sridhar led the team whose recommendations have prevented another Ebola outbreak: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(15)00946-0/fulltext You take your suggestion to a meeting with the editor. Lisa Summers and Glen Campbell might have been there. They agree that what you’ve found is ‘all very interesting’ but they’re going to go … Continue reading For advice on pandemics should we consult an Edinburgh team of 12 led by a professor of ‘global public health’ or one long-retired expert on contaminated church lunches in Wishaw?

Regular readers may remember Herald headline writers’ previous struggles with a desire for covid-19 cases to ‘soar’ when they are really stubbornly falling: https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2020/04/28/coronavirus-cases-soar-down-in-heraldland/ https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2020/04/17/new-coronavirus-cases-fall-for-third-day-in-a-row-but-soar-in-the-herald/ They’ve done it again with the one above from yesterday. I feel for them a bit this time. There were 313 new cases compared to only 200 the previous day but to soar you need to be in the air and ascending increasingly for a bit longer. The graph below helps: See that dashed line showing the trend? The number of new cases has been falling for nearly two weeks now with just some variation … Continue reading Nope, Herald headlines still a soarpoint as ‘Scottish cases crawl past 11 000?’

Edinburgh University graduate and Shadowy Secretary of State, Ian Murray, has called on the SNP Government to help his old alma matter out, as covid-19 bites into its well-padded finances. However as one of the worst in the UK, THE worst in Scotland , for admitting working-class students, it should be last in line: ‘A HESA (Higher Education Statistics Agency) assessment has revealed that only 18.7 per cent of Edinburgh students come from a working class background. This statistic is 12th lowest in the country, with Oxford’s 10 per cent taking the bottom spot. Edinburgh didn’t fare well in relation … Continue reading Morningside Labour MP calls for MORE inequality!

Breakthrough in preventing coronavirus infections From Pharmiweb.com yesterday: 28th April 2020 – St Andrews, Scotland – Pneumagen Ltd, a University of St Andrews spinout, focused on treating infectious disease and oncology by targeting the human glycome, today announced results from three separate in vitro studies into preventing coronavirus infections including SARS-CoV-2 infection the cause of COVID-19 using Neumifil™ and other first-in-class multivalent Carbohydrate Binding Modules (mCBMs), generated using its proprietary GlycoTarge™ platform. Working closely with Public Health England’s Porton facility, and separately the University of Glasgow’s MRC Centre for Virus Research, Pneumagen has tested the activity of its mCBMs against coronaviruses, using plaque … Continue reading Scottish company’s breakthrough in coronavirus prevention disappoints anti-independence group

From Euronews yesterday A 50-turbine wind farm in southern Scotland will be up and running by 2023, sustainable energy firm Vattenfall confirmed this week. South Kyle Windfarm, near Dalmellington, is set to be the firm’s largest onshore wind farm in the United Kingdom. Once construction is complete, the turbines will be able to power approximately 170,000 UK homes, saving nearly 300,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions annually. That’s the equivalent of 65,000 cars being taken off the road. The deal agreed by Vattenfall and Greencoat UK Wind will cost £320 million. While this is a substantial amount, according to renewable UK, investments such … Continue reading Scottish windfarm to be biggest in UK

Massie has written at some length but with little accuracy on the SNP sneakily postponing their review of education under the heading: ‘The SNP is using Covid to bury bad news’ I must be losing it because I felt a fleeting moment of compassion for him as he struggles to find something bad about what’s happening to the folk he left behind up here to live among the Johnsons, the Rees-Moggs, the Hancocks and the Patels, to name only a few. When he sees this sort of thing it must make his wee heart stutter: Credit https://skwawkbox.org/author/skwawkbox/ Continue reading Covid is using the Tories to reveal bad news

At the briefing today, the First Minister carefully inserted those lines into a section on care home deaths. In some ways we shouldn’t need to hear them. Isn’t it obvious that the owners of a facility are responsible for it? When factory workers die because the owners have not invested in the safety equipment that law requires them to, we blame them not the Government. When the death rates in homes for the elderly rocketed why did it not occur to the reporters at BBC Disclosure Scotland to investigate the extent to which employers have followed the guidance and the … Continue reading ‘Care homes have had strict guidance to follow since 13 March and it is incumbent on all care home providers, whether they are in the public or private sector to follow and to implement that guidance’

The line graphs above show the weekly excess deaths (deviation in mortality from the expected level). In a report focusing mainly on comparison of the English data with that of other European countries, Sky News mentions, in passing that the rate of excess deaths is much higher in England than on Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland: Sky News analysis has found that England is among the European countries with the highest number of “excess deaths” during the COVID-19 pandemic. Excess deaths are calculated by subtracting the expected number of deaths in a given period (based on past mortality rates) from the total … Continue reading Sky News reports ‘excess mortality’ is much higher in England and Wales than in Scotland

From the Herald’s Entertainment Correspondent, Brian Beacom, the pretty uncontroversial ‘opinion’ which must surely disappoint his clickbait manager. I don’t know whether Beacom goes on to suggest nationalisation but given his earlier pieces defending Rod Stewart’s right to vote for Boris Johnson and his proud defence of the older man’s inalienable right to get a thatch like Andrew Neil’s, it seems unlikely. Anyhow, here are some reasons why nationalisation is needed: From the Daily Record only three weeks ago as covid-19 spread: Care home bosses could face fines or even jail if they don’t comply with new measures to protect staff and … Continue reading Nationalise old folk’s homes now!

Scotland’s achievement in controlling Covid-19 deaths in hospitals, thanks to the heroic efforts of staff and the determined actions of the Scottish Government to make sure the system could cope has been praised by 99 year-old, retired oncologist, Hugh Preeningson: ‘This could have been so much worse and the system unable to cope. The First Minister and her team are to be congratulated for putting the country first and being as that Fraser guy would say ‘Aye Ready!’ Preeningson is confident that NHS Scotland can now catch up with elective surgery and cancer care and lists his reasoning below: There … Continue reading Coronavirus in Scotland: First Minister is praised as Covid-19 deaths in hospitals are suppressed enabling speedy plans for return to full cancer care and elective surgery