On the 1st February, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said 98% of older people in care homes and 88% of care home staff have had the jab and that the NHS is “ahead of schedule” to complete first doses for all over-80s by Friday. On that same day, Scotland vaccinated more of its population pro rata than England and has continued to do so since then. In desperation Scottish Conservatives appear daily on BBC Scotland to claim it’s a postcode lottery. The data: Date England Scotland 31.1.21 5167 1782 1.2.21 5009 6459 2.2.21 5360 7126 3.2.21 6764 8349 4.2.21 6936 8919 … Continue reading On the day they completed care homes, Scotland’s vaccinators surged into the lead

There are now 200 Army Vaccinators from Fife, working in Scotland and the same number is helping out in Wales, despite it having a much smaller population. As with figures for care home vaccinations, Covid-testing and hospital-onset infections, the number of Army vaccinators working in England is not yet available. Scotland has more than 3 000 civilian vaccinators so the Army 200 represent 6% or less of the total force. Sources: https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/army-steps-up-vaccine-roll-23436456 https://www.wired-gov.net/wg/news.nsf/articles/UK+Government+doubles+Armed+Forces+support+for+vaccine+rollout+in+Wales+05022021142700?open https://www.gov.scot/news/vaccination-information-campaign/ Continue reading Is Four Nations Army of vaccinators understrength in Scotland

Scotland has vaccinated 99% of all care home residents and 93% of all over-80s: https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-daily-data-for-scotland/ England’s world-beating system claims 90% of all ‘eligible’ care home residents but has, according to Channel 4, managed only 80% of all care home residents and 88.1% of over-80s. Worryingly for any attempts at future relaxation of lock-down, London has only done 74.9% of its over-80s. From the World Health Organisation: The percentage of people who need to be immune in order to achieve herd immunity varies with each disease. For example, herd immunity against measles requires about 95% of a population to be vaccinated. The remaining 5% … Continue reading Scotland surges ahead on vaccination of over-80s

I don’t know where to begin. I hope Kate Forbes has a look at this before given any of our money to the newspapers. The Herald tells us how many there have been of new cases, deaths and hospital admissions but doesn’t ever tell us what the trends are so that we can know how to react to that news. More on that later. First, though, the graph above, supposedly updated on the 4th February 2020. Why then does the Daily Cases line stop in October 2020? At first sight we’re in trouble. More later. Second, what’s the good in … Continue reading Herald graph hides SNP strategy working impressively: Should we be assisting or advising NHS England now?

90 year-old Margaret Robertson of Dunfermline has accused Scotland’s media of weakening the vaccination programme by demoralising the teams working hard to get the vaccines done with negative reports like the one above. She told Talking-up Scotland: Just had visit from GP Vaccination done Over 80s were completed last week Our surgery staff will work in local vaccination hub all weekend All working their socks off & fed up with criticism fired at Scotland from media for lagging behind when we’re NOT Soul destroying Continue reading 90 year-old shielder accuses Scottish media of demoralising vaccinators

The ‘pressure’ is of course from the press to give them money to keep writing rubbish and often anti-SNP rubbish. The opposition parties, who often deliver the rubbish to them, of course agree. Nobody trusts journos these days. Everybody knows they serve corporate and UK state interests above those of their readers. That’s one reason why they have so few readers. 20th out of 24 in this 2017 UK poll but, if we had a Scottish poll, bottom. In this 2020 international poll, the UK media come second bottom. Could this sort of thing from the Herald be a reason? … Continue reading Trusted Kate Forbes acts on the evidence to dump the Scottish press

Reading of the story of a teacher’s allegedly offensive video regarding Ruth Davidson (centre), I noticed that she had been the beneficiary of Scotland’s world-beating IVF programme. I feel this gives me the opportunity to repeat our 26th August report on an NHS Target regularly busted but never reported. I feel sure Ruth would want the world to know. I have it on authority, from a reliable source, that she knows it’s world-beating. SCOTLAND’S WORLD-BEATING IVF SERVICE MAINTAINS 100% RECORD DESPITE COVID-19 The Scottish Government requires NHS Scotland to measure the length of time people wait for treatment. The target … Continue reading Ruth Davidson ‘knows’ Scotland’s IVF is world-beating

By stewartb Tucked away in the BBC News website on Thursday (4 February) there appeared an article by Jennifer Scott, online political reporter. It is entitled: “Labour: Historic divisions over patriotism pose challenge for Starmer”. I had considered, and initially rejected, the notion of commenting but my Friday morning read of the Source Direct newsletter convinced me. Today’s issue has a link to a piece by David Jamieson entitled: “Starmer’s ‘national’ turn makes little sense in a fractured Union”. He provides a link to the Guardian of 2 February 2021 and the headline: “Leak reveals Labour plan to focus on … Continue reading More flags please – we’re British Labour!

After three days of ill-informed reports suggesting that Scotland is behind England in rolling out vaccines, we get this headlined: The Deputy First Minister warns that snow could disrupt Covid vaccinations over the next day. Here is the news, based on what he said: Number of cases well down at 895. Positive cases below 5% for second day, satisfying WHO criterion for infection under control. R number between 0.7 and 0.9 so ‘comfortably’ below 1. Fewer in hospital, fewer in ICU. Record number vaccinated for 4th day in a row. 99% of residents in older care homes. 93% of all … Continue reading Never mind the successes, Snow could disrupt Covid vaccinations!

Professor Richard Murphy has utterly debunked the LSE report suggesting Scotland would be poorer after independence. You can read it here: I’ve written already to expose the LSE’s willingness to give you what you want, for a price but, today, George Kerevan has drawn our attention to this footnote in the report: We are grateful to Angus Armstrong, Jim Gallagher and Mairi Spowage for useful discussions about the Scottish economy and Scottish data. Who is Gallagher? He’s the main researcher at Gordon Brown’s Our Scottish Future thunk tank and a member of the Scotland in Union Board. And NO, he’s … Continue reading ThE LSE report on poor Scotland and their non-critical friend