Sky News today have been reporting the remarkable success with 50% of Scotland’s 12-15 year-olds jagged compared to only 20% in England. The Scottish Government’s strategy of setting up drop-in centres has proved, as predicted by experts, more successful than the in-school only jabbing preferred by the Conservative Government for England. Reporting Scotland Badly have not been all over the story but have been out getting folk to complain about a rail strike, dirty streets and low pay. Yeh, the BBC has always cared about low pay. Continue reading What, twice as good as England on teen jags? No, we’ve worse things to tell you about!

After a few days of a slight rise in cases, Scotland’s new confirmed cases figure has fallen from 47.2 cases per 100K to 46.4 in the last 24 hours. This compares favourably with 64.7 in Northern Ireland, 72 and climbing in England, 106.7 and rocketing in Wales. There have been calls for Alex Cole-Hamilton and Douglas Ross to explain why Scotland is doing so well. Continue reading

From Fraser Nelson in the Telegraph today: It hasn’t taken Sajid Javid long to get into a fight with the doctors’ unions. Unlike recent Tory Health Secretaries, he doesn’t wear an “NHS” badge on his lapel – regarding himself more as a reformer than a cheerleader. He rejected calls to extend lockdown in July and is resisting bringing restrictions now. The British Medical Association is upping the ante, accusing him of “wilfully negligence” in his failure to enforce mask-wearing. Their message: if things get worse, he’ll be to blame…. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/10/21/nhs-isnt-facing-another-covid-crisis-sajid-javid-knows/?WT.mc_id=e_DM1510383&WT.tsrc=email&etype=Loy_Dig_Acq_Sat_14Dto21D&utmsource=email&utm_medium=Loy_Dig_Acq_Sat_14Dto21D20211023&utm_campaign=DM1510383 No I haven’t lost my marbles but one of my … Continue reading Fraser Nelson and Savid Javid confirm my thinking?

Sandesh Gulhane, Tory MSP, is in the Herald to insist that city residents must not suffer from traffic restrictions due to COP26 but wait, who is responsible for all this? Gulhane will no doubt go on to blame the SNP Government for anything such as one of his patients being late for one of his thousands of appointments every week. However, Gulhane’s boss, Johnson, said in March: The COP26 summit is one of the single biggest priorities that any government could have domestically and internationally and it’s a massive job and we’re throwing everything at it. https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-climate-cop26-johnson-idUSKBN2BG2HQ The Scottish Government … Continue reading Conservatives want to ‘cop’ the credit and so must take any flak?

In the Herald by the Ferret’s Paul Dobson: The Scottish Government has missed its targets on reducing climate emissions in five of the seven sectors set out in its 2018 plan to tackle climate change. https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/19662727.snp-slammed-five-seven-key-climate-targets-missed/ Day 5 of the Herald/Labour/Ferret to undermine Scotland’s achievements and, in so doing, distracting from Tory/UK/corporate failures. The Ferret is correct, in that aspirational targets have not been met but oh so wrong, at times, in it’s use of misleading data. I haven’t got the energy to dig into today’s set but yesterday, they distorted the evidence on water pollution: https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2021/10/22/a-little-pre-cop26-perspective-on-scotlands-polluted-waterways/ The day before, it … Continue reading Ferret misses positives

Telling us about the dual risk of flu and Covid this winter Ros Atkins of the BBC points to the above chart. Once more, real differences within the UK are obscured and viewers misled: The presentation is different in the above graph but the point is clear. Scotland has around 80% more beds per head of population than England and so, in the BBC bar chart, would lie midway between Italy and France. Continue reading ‘UK’ bed shortages identified as problem this winter by BBC

On BBC 1 this morning we see once more ignorance of what is happening across the UK in terms of infection rates. After the above FT journalist is presented as reliable alternative to all the experts calling for mask-wearing, we’re told by the presenter: And we know that despite some policy differences across the four nations, including some mandatory mask wearing, we’re seeing similar Covid patterns for all of the UK. Really? Are these trends similar? And, the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine spotted a decline in mask wearing in England and Wales in September, but not in Scotland … Continue reading Masks or no masks?

NHS Lanarkshire’s three hospitals are all full despite national Covid hospital admissions being at less than half of the peak in February and 15% down on late September. ICU cases, at 56 across the whole country, are down from over 100 a few weeks ago. Staff absences are down for the sixth week in a row and a quarter of the peak in April 2021. NHS Scotland has 279 hospitals some of which are only a few miles from the three in Lanarkshire. Why can’t they take some of the load off Lanarkshire? Which health board is better placed, more … Continue reading Am I missing something? Just transfer patients to other health boards?

This was written by a health editor based on ONS data. The ONS can easily break down the data for each of the 4 nations but has chosen not to do so. So, Scots are increasingly lax on masks too? Nope. The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine has been monitoring behaviour changes in terms of facemask wearing and social mixing. Notably, for the week-ending 29 September 2021, with rates falling slightly or flat across the UK, they noted in their data: Self-reported facemask wearing for those who have at least one non-home contact appears to have reduced below … Continue reading English and Welsh ‘Brits’ increasingly lax on masks but Scottish ‘Brits’ keeping them on

Infection levels in Wales at 105.9 cases per 100K have now soared to more than twice the rate in Scotland, 46.5 per 100K. England’s surge though less perpendicular than that in Wales, also shows little sign of flattening at 70.5 per 100K. BBC Wales is not all over the story and the Tory leader in Wales (no idea) is not being platformed by BBC Wales to call for their Health Secretary (no idea) to go.. You might think it’s not real, in Wales. BBC UK is headlining the benefits of home working. They better be careful. Crossing Rees-Mogg might affect … Continue reading No calls for Welsh Health Secretary to go