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

On Day 4 of the Herald/Labour/Ferret hatchet job on the SNP Government’s record in protecting the environment, as we approach COP26: Scotland’s rivers, lochs, canals and burns are in the worst state on record, with more than 400 damaged by pollution and other problems, according to the latest official analysis.  https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/homenews/19660883.scotlands-rivers-lochs-worst-state-record/ But, in paragraph two we read: So, this record pollution is not an actual physical increase but a change in reporting. Until the latest change, SEPA show this: Note a decline in reported pollution levels from 1999 to 2012, then new standards increasing the level of pollution reported, before … Continue reading Healthy rivers in Scotland 66% England ZERO!

Between the spring of 1788 and summer of 1790 fifty seven complaints were made to London Magistrates by women alleging that they had been molested and stabbed [on the buttocks] by an individual stranger in public. https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/412011/1/LIBRARY_COPY_PhD_Thesis_Final_Formatted_Version.pdf Reports of ‘lady bottom cutters’ then spread like wildfire across the newly emerging mass media in the form of daily newspapers. While it cannot be shown that there were no actual incidents of bottom cutting, initially, the media-amplified spread has been described as one of the earliest example of a moral panic where mass media take reports of deviance, construct them into a … Continue reading Is spiking by injection just another moral panic like 18th Century ‘lady bottom cutters?’

BBC Scotland headed their September 16 report with ‘Sturgeon under fire over ‘in crisis’ ambulance service‘ and gave Douglas Ross the leading role. They had no photos and no data on ambulances waiting outside A&E but faux angry tirades from three opposition politicians. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-scotland-58574791 BBC Cornwall report today: The Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust (RCHT) has declared a critical incident due to the pressures it is facing. A critical incident allows all health and care organisations to work together and focus on resolving the situation. The trust reported up to 100 people were waiting to be seen in the emergency department … Continue reading 25 ambulances and 100 waiting but neither Johnson nor Javid under fire

Today’s infection rate in England, 44 400 with ten times the population, is almost twice pro rata that in Scotland, 2 400. It’s more than twice, pro rata in Wales at 4 200 with only 3 fifths of the population. Against that background, making a connection with reduced mask wearing, BBC Health’s Daniel Kraemar tells us: The proportion of people wearing masks has steadily declined. Between 18 July and 3 October, the percentage of people in England, Scotland and Wales who said they had worn a face covering outside their home in the past seven days dropped nine percentage points, … Continue reading Masking the differences as England surges barefaced