Yesterday, the First Minister was careful to talk about the flow of covid-19 infection possibly being from Scotland into England. All of the media coverage talks of a cross-border cluster across south west Scotland and north west England. We don’t know for certain what happened yet but, these statistics might be of interest. Today, Professor Chris Isles of Dumfries and Galloway: We have had no new Covid positive cases throughout the region for the last eight days, no Covid positive cases in the hospital for the last five days and no Covid positive deaths for the last fortnight. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-52891239 Yesterday, … Continue reading Has one of Scotland’s least infected places infected England’s third-most infected place or….?

Whenever churnos talk of spikes, like the one that wasn’t in the Glasgow cancer wards for children, I reach for my varifocals and the source material. Here it is: The black line goes up and down between 6.5 and 2 stillbirths per 1 000 total births. It has recently climbed above 5 but was even higher in 2017 when there was no pandemic. Nevertheless the Herald’s Health Correspondent thinks: ‘Aha! A spike. This will make a good headline.’ But just below the graph: As stillbirths and infant deaths are relatively rare events in Scotland mortality rates tend to fluctuate over … Continue reading Helen McArdle doesn’t read the instructions and imagines a spike in stillbirths which isn’t there

stewartb The Times article is – unsurprisingly – carefully and negatively framed. No longer a ‘newspaper of record’ just, at least towards Scotland, a malign rag. However this scariness is all built around a big assumption that shop staff will be required by government to police adherence to the new face covering rule. Can we assume that ‘retail chiefs’ want to open their shops? Surely, even The Times accepts the answer to this is ‘yes’. So what is the problem the journalist seeks to expose? Is the implication here that the Scottish Government is pushing ahead without consultation and against … Continue reading Scottish Government has been consulting the Scottish Retail Consortium

I’ve been here before. Last year the Scottish Retail Consortium claimed that nine shop-workers were being assaulted every single day. I wrote to the lead researcher for a sight of the data broken down by region. He wrote back: They’s just made up the Scottish figure. I’m not going to bother asking this time. The author seems to work for my local the Ayrshire Post. Published in a low-crime area you’d think we lived in 1990s Bronx – page after page of death, despair, drugs, thugs, cheats and paedophiles. Continue reading Times predicts Nicola’s mask policy will backfire!

Despite Leicester, and the FT’s true statistics, the Guardian today, still tries to tell us that Wales is the most infected part of the UK and that Scotland and Northern Ireland are the same as most of England. The Public Health England statistics for Leicester were just 80 new cases in the period 13-26 June, yet they were told to lock-down. You can understand their confusion. Of course, Westminster knew the truth was 944 cases but had been keen to conceal the true figures for the whole of England, knowing they were far worse than those published, and released to … Continue reading The Guardian protecting the Johnson regime from scrutiny and England from the terrible truth

Once free of the 4 Nations approach (herd immunity), the First Minister and her team went hard at it with a strict lock-down based on clear, consistent and transparent communications. It has worked. Now, research by Professor Kao at Edinburgh University has estimated that had we not done so, the total coronavirus-related death toll might have been nearer 40 000 than the 4 000 we have. Prof Kao and his team’s modelling suggested: “With no lockdown and some restrictions, Scotland could have experienced a slightly larger outbreak, possibly with 7,280 deaths, or a far larger outbreak which could have killed … Continue reading Sturgeon’s clear messaging and all our discipline may have saved 36 000 lives!

More than 1 000 cases! The health board CE has to answer. There’s no mention, certainly no anxious photo, of the minister or of the PM. There’s no image of a creepy Labour MP ‘supporting’ the parents either. But in Scotland, the BBC and the Labour Party do it differently: Not only do we get an exploitative photo of the Health Secretary, a former nurse, who clearly cares about what she does, we get the First Minister and Anas Sarwar ‘supporting’ the parents. That last thought would make you boak. Continue reading 1 000 unnecessary baby deaths in one English hospital and no mention of Matt Hancock but in Scotland, 1 death and Jeane Freeman is the target

As Leicester locks down again, you look at that table and think: Where’s Leicester? Wait, Dundee is 4th? Wales is more infected than England? WalesOnline has done a thorough job on these figures, for obvious reasons: Throughout the outbreak it has never made sense because, as terrible a loss of life as they have seen, none of those councils have had the most deaths of people with Covid-19 in the UK as shown in the ONS weekly stats. In recent days, it has not made sense that local authorities in Wales appear to have had the biggest rise in coronavirus … Continue reading Dundee is NOT the 4th most infected area in the UK because English authorities are not counting all the test results

From MarketWatch on 27 June: It is a common refrain from critics of the lockdown. Don’t let the cure — locking down the economy — be worse than the disease it is preventing. If that is the case, then, Sweden should be a case study in how to manage the disease. It famously didn’t lock down. Bars and restaurants remained open, as did hairdressers and gyms. The University of Oxford’s government response tracker puts into numbers the light-touch effort, showing Sweden was one of the least restrictive countries in the world. Remember this? The MarketWatch report (full version at link … Continue reading Why the Scottish Tories’ quicker exit from lock-down would have done little for the economy

By stewartb The BBC News website (30 June) tells us this: ‘Boris Johnson has said now is the time to be “ambitious” about the UK’s future, as he set out a post-coronavirus recovery plan. The PM vowed to “use this moment” to fix longstanding economic problems and promised a £5bn “new deal” to build homes and infrastructure. Plans set out in the Tory election manifesto would be speeded up and “intensified,” he added.’ Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-53234058 The same source also tells us: ‘Over the last few days, the comparisons the government has sought to draw have been with former American President … Continue reading Scotland Office and Scottish Tories say NOTHING about ‘ambitious new deal’