I guess if you don’t want to know something, you just don’t look. The Scotsman’s Kevin Christie is a blinkered man if he thinks these are just PR: Higher recovery rate Lower excess mortality rate Mortality among BAME groups is lower Death rate in care homes is lower Mortality among key workers is lower: Assessment centres protected GP surgeries Better staffing Cleaner hospitals Better Government leadership Evidence (Facts, Kev) below: Higher recovery rate: According to GlobalData Epidemiologist Bahram Hassanpourfard, the global recovery rate is 32%. Hassanpourfard drew attention to the ‘UK’ rate of only 0.46% but I suspect that is … Continue reading NINE ways Scotland HAS handled Covid-19 pandemic better

Gleefully spreading lies, along with her colleagues such as Jackson Carlaw, Ruth Davidson wrote in the Sun and shouted on GMB yesterday to perpetuate a myth based entirely on England’s failure to properly record deaths in care homes. Along with most of the mainstream media, she has ignored the data from research by LSE, reported on May 14th in Care Home Professional: More than 22,000 care home residents in England and Wales have died during the coronavirus pandemic, according to new research. In a new paper, the LSE said data on deaths had underestimated the impact of the pandemic on … Continue reading Ruth Davidson’s claim of higher care home deaths in Scotland totally disproved by London School of Economic researchers. It’s lower

By Brenda Steele: I’ve been totting up the attacks from all sides on the FM and Jeanne Freeman over the Nike-Conference-Gate Labour’s Ian Murray has been on the case: https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/scottish-government-should-admit-covid-nike-cover-and-move-ian-murray-mp-2859699 Scottish Government should admit Covid Nike cover-up and move on – Ian Murray MP We should all thank Nicola Sturgeon for her work during the Covid crisis, but she needs to own up to the mishandling of the Nike conference coronavirus outbreak in February, writes Ian Murray MP. Cover-up: “An attempt to prevent people discovering the truth.” That’s the dictionary definition of a cover-up, but it could alternatively state: “What … Continue reading Nike HQ ‘cover-up’ by Acting PM Raab after infected employee returns to London from overseas

From sam: This, from Taiwan, has been up before.It helps still to add context and, I hope, some force to stewartb’s post. “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.” https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2020/03/22/2003733144 Singapore “The Ministry of Health (MOH) announced 47 new cases of Covid-19 in Singapore on March 21. Of these cases, 39 are imported, with 16 of them having a travel history to the UK.” … Continue reading Scotland’s real Covid-19 ‘Ground Zero’ was almost certainly not a conference but an airport

By stewartb: Statista, the information/research company, has collated findings of YouGov  polling which aimed  to discover where in the world trust in media coverage of the coronavirus pandemic is highest and lowest. The overall results are summarised in the chart below. Source of graphic: Statista (https://www.statista.com/chart/21779/trust-in-coronavirus-media-coverage- worldwide/ ) Now it has to be borne in mind that the media landscape in different countries and cultures varies considerably. However, it is argued that comparison of levels of trust in media coverage amongst democratic countries with a ‘free press’ is possible and credible. In Germany, 54 percent of those polled trust the … Continue reading UK media among least trusted in the world

Headline and image chosen by Editor. From stewartb: There is now so much heat – rather than light – being generated by the corporate media and opposition politicians in Holyrood over the “Nike Conference” incident. So, it seems appropriate, and timely, to get some context when assessing its likely significance.  Please bear with this as we construct the argument. The media’s ‘big’ claim One of the most read newspapers in Edinburgh chose this headline on 11 May: Source: https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/business/nike-edinburgh-conference-was-ground-zero-covid-19-outbreak-scotland-2849739 The newspaper was amplifying, uncritically for Edinburgh residents the content of a BBC Scotland documentary: “A conference staged by sports goods … Continue reading BBC Disclosure and Scotsman ‘Ground Zero’ Nike comparison is both wrong and offensive to the victims of 9/11

With Newsnight presenter Kirsty Wark clearly already in their camp, Professor Linda Bauld and Doctor Phillipa Whitford MP, were scathing in their assessment of Boris Johnson’s promised ‘World-class’ testing system for covid-19. Professor Pennington was not invited to comment. Critically, as Bauld points out, to be successful as in Germany, the system needs to be localised, using systems and expertise already in place. The Scottish system will do just that. In contrast, Johnson plans a centralised system based on contracting the work out to Serco and a mobile phone ‘app.’ Whitford then points out that Johnson should have put the … Continue reading Scottish health expert ‘not convinced at all’ by Johnson’s plan for ‘world-beating’ testing programme

Members of the Bearsden Amateur Dramatics Society, have been searching for some time to try to find a ‘girl’ to play Trisha in their stage version of the horror story with the local cadaverous hunk, Tom Gordon of the Herald, in the lead as Tom Gordon. Scottish politician Nicola Sturgeon, already familiar with Gordon’s acting, was approached but, as you can see above, quickly rebuffed the offer. Who would you like to see in the role of the girl who wanders off the trail into the woods? Jackie Baillie and Jo Swinson are my favourites for it. The role of … Continue reading Search for the Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon goes on after recent failures

Two old guys who really should know better and with nothing substantive to say to justify their fees, reveal the Herald’s plea for readers to support their ‘good trusted journalism’ to be laughable. They take the most serious of government strategies in a time of pandemic, carefully designed to ease the country back to life while at the same time protecting lives and, with their unattributed ‘source’ at No 10, try to make the story this: NICOLA Sturgeon is “following” a path blazed by Boris Johnson with her route map for easing the coronavirus lockdown, Downing Street has said. Did anyone other … Continue reading Two old dinosaurs try to turn adult politics in a time of crisis into an Eton playground game

These are the three men deeply unimpressive yet with a good conceit of themselves, who yesterday felt able to suggest the Health Secretary had lost the confidence of the public. Her crime, resulting in this supposed loss of public confidence, to have in the beginnings of a pandemic, authorised the transfer of elderly patients from acute care in hospitals into care homes, designed to better care for them in the light of their particular conditions and to free-up space in acute care, so that it would not be overwhelmed by a feasible surge in covid-19 cases. No one, certainly no … Continue reading The Health Secretary’s three limp accusers do not impress us