Fed by Jackie ‘Trident’ Baillie, the SOS fails to inform us accurately on hospital-onset cases of Covid. It’s true, the number of definite and probable cases of hospital-onset cases was on the week ending 17th January at the highest it has been. BUT, at that time, hospitalisations had been increasing for nearly a month, to twice the level they had been a month before. So, there were more cases because there were more patients. When we see the data for hospital onset infections after the current fall in admissions, what do we think might happen? Duh? BUT, more important, what … Continue reading PREMIUM: You are FAR FAR LESS likely to catch Covid iN a Scottish hospital

In an incisive piece of writing by Sam Merriman, formerly of the Middle Earth Messenger, goes for the jugular in the ‘farcical’ Union. The SNP Government have, it seems, got their act together and required ALL arrivals in Scottish airports to quarantine in hotels. The Tory Government in London, under pressure from their corporate backers, has not matched Scotland’s strategy and thus some Scots arriving from airports in England cannot be required to quarantine in hospitals but will only be expected to self-isolate in their own homes. It’s a farce. We agree with Merriman. Johnson has once more betrayed the … Continue reading SHOCK: Sun calls for UDI for Scotland

This not-so-fine piece of investigative journalism is based on a ‘source’ at Edinburgh Airport. We know who that is. He’s in the media, serially, to find fault with the SNP Government because they don’t do just what he wants when he wants it, treat him with the respect he feels entitled too or because they haven’t done something well before they said they’d do it. Where, Sunday Post snapper, is the zombie-horde of potentially infected travellers surging through the arrival gate to super-spread among us? Did you speak to that one guy there? Wait, that’s not the reporter posing for … Continue reading SHOCK: Sunday Post finds ONE!

The current death rate from Covid-19 remains horribly high but it has been falling slowly yet un-remarked upon. On the 26th January the 7 day average peaked at 60. By the 4th of February it had fallen to 50 and in the last 24 hours it was 40. Still disturbing figures, I know, but these are signs that lagging behind the case and hospitalisation rates, deaths will fall. We can look forward to further falls until we get back to where we were in July when there were days with none. With vaccination rates for the over 80s and the … Continue reading Death rate now 50% down from peak

With 99.9% of care home residents vaccinated and the death rate there in steep decline, NHS Scotland has accelerated mass vaccinations. After just 7 days and, in the last 4, vaccinating nearly twice the number pro rata, NHS Scotland has done 21.48% of the population, just a smidgin behind NHS England, at 21.76%. The sacrifice of around 2 000 care home residents was always a price too high just to get ahead of the EU countries but even that is now lost to the Eton schoolboys running England. NHS Scotland’s 7 day average, last week was 60% higher. Many lives … Continue reading Only one week after making the care homes safe, NHS Scotland catch up with mass vaccinations

I should be able to relax but I still get mad when the men above, and others, lie about the performance of the Scottish Government. My anger derives from a fear that some listeners or readers might believe them and be put off support for independence. I should know better. For years, I taught undergraduates about media effects. There are virtually none. Politicians, parent groups, teachers and social workers, the police and lawyers have, throughout history, campaigned against the supposedly corrupting effects, on especially our children, of comics, heavy metal music, video nasties, punk music, TV wrestling and computer games. … Continue reading The Men without Qualities and the Media without Effect

It’s still a bit sad when one of the former quality newspapers plays along with the same attempt to dupe the people. In the Guardian today: England and Wales have said they have met the government’s target of offering a coronavirus vaccine to the top four priority groups by 15 February amid growing warnings that the supply of vaccines would be cut for the next fortnight. Achieving the milestone means that vaccinators have been told they can now invite people aged 65 to 69 in both nations to come forward, with Scotland expected shortly to follow suit. What sort of fools … Continue reading More FAKE NEWS on offering to hit targets based on posting letters

Posted by the BBC on Friday 12th of February, the authors answer their own question with this graph: So, for readers on the 12th of February, the data up to the 7th February are used. It shows, of course, England and its regions ahead of the three devolved nations. Readers are no doubt well aware by now that these are the data for the period during which these three nations followed the JCVI advice fully and concentrated on the care homes while NHS England did only some of those, in parallel with mass vaccination of the walking over 70s and … Continue reading Talking us down to shield the UK Government’s failures

By stewartb The House of Commons Library (HoCL) has just published a briefing paper entitled ‘Police Service Strength’ (Briefing Paper SN-00634). It provides a comparison of police numbers in the four nations of the UK, including the change in numbers that have occurred over time. Below are highlights from the report. The first graph (above) is the police officer strength (in thousands of Full Time Equivalents) between 2006 and 2020 in England & Wales. It reveals a period of relative stability in the total up to c. 2009 followed by a very marked fall during Tory dominance in Westminster. The … Continue reading Don’t let Tories anywhere near power in Holyrood – a lesson from police service staffing in England & Wales

Today Jeanne Freeman rejected claims Scottish Government officials spent days plotting how to spin a report into hospital patients being discharged to care homes. She said the comments from the Scottish Conservatives were “absolute nonsense”.  The comments came from Donald Cameron, above, and included these astonishingly tribal and stupid claims: Cameron seems unaware of his leader’s thoughts on this. In his Covid-19 Winter Plan updated on 2nd December, Conservative PM Boris Johnson made it clear that hospital patients who have tested positive can be discharged into English care homes and that staff moving between sites were the carriers of the … Continue reading Scottish Conservatives contradict the PM and accuse ‘all’ researchers of spinning care home deaths