A few days ago, the coronavirus death rate in Germany was just under 4 per 1 000. The UK rate then was around 50 and in Scotland it was 18 but in Italy it was 90! These differences are of huge importance in understanding what should be done to reduce deaths. I’ve already suggested that outsourced cleaning and catering services may, in part, explain the higher rate in England than in Scotland and there is research evidence from the University of Oxford for this view: http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2016-12-21-nhs-hospitals-outsource-cleaning-%E2%80%98linked-higher-rates-mrsa%E2%80%99 The difference between Germany and Italy may also be influenced by this factor but … Continue reading Why Coronavirus deaths are more than 20 times higher in Italy than in Germany?

The Scottish Government has just published it’s High Rise Inventory after a: ‘review of building and fire safety regulatory frameworks, and any other relevant matters, to help ensure that people are safe in Scotland’s buildings, and make any recommendations for improvement as required.’ This, of course, follows in the wake of the Grenfell disaster in London in 2017. Readers may remember previous reports here discussing the ‘chimney effect’s role in the tower block being consumed so quickly. Several readers wrote to confirm that Scottish tower blocks are constructed so as to prevent this effect. The Inventory, points out, reassuringly (?): … Continue reading Scotland's tower blocks surveyed for fire safety

No, it’s not drug deaths, it’s wave power. This wee gem almost slipped by me. It’s not in the usual expected places – Business Insider or Energy Voice. The National, Glasgow Times, Edinburgh Evening News and the Somerset County Gazette (?) have it but the Scottish nationals don’t as far as I can see. At the end of the BBC Scotland Breakfast, 2 minute insert, this morning, around 06:30am: ‘Work is starting on a 30 tonne wave machine to generate power off Orkney. The device which is 20 metres long will be deployed at sea in the autumn. It’s been … Continue reading BBC Scotland say Scotland at forefront leading UK! They do!

Has anyone started a campaign for tax rebates now that all the council school weans are out for the Summer? Thought not. But in the Telegraph today we read: ‘Barnaby Lenon, chairman of the ICC and a former headmaster of Harrow School, urged embittered parents to remember that private schools will face the same risk of closure as other small businesses if they lose money.’ No I did not make his name up. You never need to make up the names of top fee-paying school’s heidies. He does have only one ‘n’ in ‘Lenon’. No it’s not Lenin! Continue reading Champions of selfish individualism, brutal competition and embedded inequality beg customers to act like socialists

National clinical director Jason Leitch, today:  “The Chief Scientific Adviser in England has said he thinks 20,000 deaths across the UK would be a good outcome. In Scotland, that would be about 2,000, but the worst-case scenario is much worse than that. People need to take the advice they’re being given very seriously.” Scotland is neither 10 % of the UK nor is it any simple percentage of it. First, Scotland’s population is only 8% of the UK so even if we accept the premise, that would be 1 600 deaths. Second, it is already clear that NHS Scotland is saving … Continue reading Scotland’s national clinical director’s ‘worrying’ arithmetic

Wales has half the population of Scotland yet, now, almost twice as many coronavirus deaths. Were it the other way round, we’d hear about it. 12 deaths in 347 means a rate of 36 per 1 000, twice the Scottish rate of 19 but still below the English average of 49. The Labour Party has been dominant in Wales for at least 70 years now and has run government there for 20. NHS Wales is the manifestation of the competence or otherwise of the Labour Party. Like the Labour Party in Scotland, they have betrayed their supporters. On many counts, … Continue reading If it was the other way round they’d report it

Leaving aside the astonishing brass neck required for Miles Briggs to call himself the Shadow Health Secretary, the Herald letting him talk unchallenged about a crisis in social care in Scotland, beggars belief. Don’t they read about the all-too-real crisis in social care in Tory England? See this from the Guardian last June: The government’s failure to get to grips with the escalating financial crisis in social care has put tens of thousands of older and disabled people at risk of being denied basic support such as help with washing and dressing, care chiefs have warned. Without urgent guarantees over … Continue reading Herald platforms Tory plan to spread coronavirus infection more widely

From sam: It seems possible, and perhaps probable now, that UK government policy, followed by the Scottish and other UK governments, has been fatally flawed when dealing with covid19. That is the opinion of Professor Anthony Costello, former Director of WHO who has a piece in the New Statesman.Here is an extract. “Marc Lipsitch and colleagues, from Harvard and Nanjing universities, report that between 10 January and 29 February Wuhan hospitals faced on average 637 intensive care unit patients and 3,454 serious inpatients every day. Instead, be like Guangzhou, the largest province in China, where strict disease control measures were … Continue reading Coronavirus: How the UK Government did not listen to the WHO

There seems to be no clear record of where Scotland’s 7 coronavirus fatalities took place. Looking back through media reports, I think the figure is 2. Greater Glasgow and Clyde has 110 cases. If 2 have died that gives a ratio of 18 per 1 000 cases. Last night the Scottish average was 19 per 1 000, the UK average was 49 per 1 000 and the figure for Italy a few days ago was more than 80! So, contrary to all the guff, we and they have suffered at the keyboards of BBC and Herald health correspondents, Anas Sarwar … Continue reading Glasgow’s super hospital one of cleanest and safest in UK?

That’s the headline today in the Herald. You’ve probably spotted something wrong. Here it is, sorted: It’s important that all our media try to be accurate. Continue reading Coronavirus in Scotland RECAP: Number of deaths rises by 1 in last 24 hours