Herald staff: ‘Oh no! only 1 death, DOWN from 8, and 139 new cases DOWN from 186! What can we do? I know, let’s ignore the key points and make up something laughably negative.’ ‘Wait, hold the presses! We need a picture of Sturgeon in there!’ Continue reading Deaths and cases DOWN but don’t worry, the Herald can make up some bad news for you

Living in Scotland, Northern Ireland or Wales and want to know the up-to-date figures for coronavirus cases and deaths? Your public service broadcaster is there for you. No need to click and read down the page. The numbers are there upfront. Want to quickly see the figures for England or for the UK as a whole? See below: Got them? No? Not there? Wonder why? Numbers getting scarily big? Several other social media commentators have mentioned this. It’s only one day, I suppose. Let’s see what happens tomorrow. Continue reading BBC UK and England helping to hide the emerging coronavirus disaster?

From sam Is the UK government’s handling of covid-19 yet more UK exceptionalism,like Brexit? http://www.progressivepulse.org/ireland/covid-19-in-great-britain-and-northern-ireland “The “exceptionalist” approach of HMG was a combination of a variety of factors. I suspect primarily the need to show the world that British exceptionalism was indeed real – that the UK was truly World-Leading. This seems to have backfired, first in needing to get into line with the rest of the world, second in the higher cost it will surely entail, both in lives and economic impact. It may even prove disastrous. Again from the Byline Times article by Nafeez Ahmed: My back-of-the-envelope projections … Continue reading Is the UK government’s handling of covid-19 yet more UK exceptionalism,like Brexit?

Fresh from stalking Alex Salmond’s admittedly ‘creepy’ defence lawyer on the Glasgow to Edinburgh train, the ‘research assistant’ for Times Sexual Abuse Correspondent, Jason Allardyce, ‘Miles’ (16), was overheard by our reporter ‘Jimmy’ (87), on the Edinburgh to London train stopping at Husbands Bosworth. ‘Miles’ said of his boss: ‘All he is interested in is sexual abuse and preferably by Scots. I’m getting sick of researching it and travelling up to chilly Jockoland all the time.’ We checked Allardyce out and found nothing but smut! In 2005 he went all the way to the Orkneys to report on the alleged … Continue reading Cheer up everyone! This is not about a virus: Talking-up Scotland reporter hears Times reporter, fresh from Salmond case, called ‘pervy’ on train to Husband’s Bosworth

In the Observer this morning: ‘The mortality rate for patients put in intensive care after being infected with Covid-19 is running at close to 50%, a report has revealed. Data from the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre (ICNARC) showed that of 165 patients treated in critical care in England, Wales and Northern Ireland since the end of February, 79 died, while 86 survived and were discharged. The figures were taken from an audit of 775 people who have been or are in critical care with the disease, across 285 intensive care units. The remaining 610 patients continue to receive intensive … Continue reading What is the survival rate for coronavirus patients in NHS Scotland’s intensive care?

Thanks to Ann Forbes for sending me this and to Contrary form reminding me! All help appreciated as I approach my 70th year (69). This is an antidote to many of the other graphs going around which would have you packing you camper van, the Citroen Campylobacter Scenic 409, and heading for the hills. While it too misuses a line graph to represent accumulated data as in the steep line based on how many cases there are altogether now, it does a great job of putting things into scale. Go straight to the bottom and look at the line of … Continue reading Updated: Don’t panic. Read this graph

There have been seven further deaths in Scotland since Friday, down one from the previous day and up from 3 and 6 on Wednesday and Thursday respectively. The mortality rate at 3.2% has been almost constant in this period. NHS staff take great credit for this. There is no sign, for the moment, of the upward curve predicted. I’m not saying it will not come though I doubt the more extreme predictions coming from the Glasgow Anaesthetist Group (GAG). Tragically, there were 260 additional deaths across the UK in the same period, a shocking 34% increase in one day which … Continue reading Tragedy as UK coronavirus deaths climb to three times the rate per capita of that in Scotland

Where is the picture of the Tory UK Prime Minister? We know he’s to blame. We know where the picture of the SNP First Minister of Scotland is. We know she’s not to blame. Where is the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland? It’s Tory Brandon Lewis. Where is the First Minister of Wales? It’s Labour’s Mark Drakeford. Continue reading The Herald’s politicising of health crises? Just a bad habit? Just an SNP thing?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election#2019 I await the the precise figure for the Scottish sub-sample, but 4% from the UK poll tends to mean at least 40% and sometimes a bit more in the Scottsih sub-samp[le. For nine polls in a row now, SNP support has been rock-solid in the 43% to 52% range. Readers will remember that supposed Independence-supporter Iain Macwhirter at the Herald predicted this trial would ‘split the SNP from top to bottom.’ Now, he might be correct about the ‘top’ as in the party leadership but among the mass of members and voters ‘at the bottom’, they have their eyes … Continue reading Another poll and still no sign that Salmondgate has had any negative effect on SNP support

BBC Scotland and the Scottish Government (?) have mis-used a line graph to suggest that something far more dramatic is happening than is actually happening. I’m amazed, on reflection, that no proper mathematician or statistician has pointed this out. I know they’ve labelled it ‘total deaths’ but that could mean that each point represents the total on that day which it does not of course. It looks as if the TREND in number of deaths, each day from the first death on 13th March, is climbing steeply but in fact it is merely the accumulated TOTAL which is increasing in … Continue reading The Scottish coronavirus mortality graph is WRONG