In the Herald today, regular critic of all the SNP have done in education, Prof Lindsay Paterson claims: The proportion of Scottish school leavers securing at least one pass at Higher or equivalent has fallen in the vast majority of council areas, sparking warnings that decades long progress in improving attainment has “stalled”. Analysis of data covering the 10-year period to 2018/19 suggests the percentage of school leavers with at least one pass at Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework level 6 or better – which includes Highers and typically provides the standard for progression to university – has been flatlining since … Continue reading Prof Paterson is wrong again and again

From Helen McArdle this morning: MASS immunisation against Covid is underway in Indonesia. But unlike the UK, the south-east Asian republic is prioritising working age adults of 18 to 59 with the goal of achieving herd immunity faster and rebooting the economy. What follows, once more misses the bleeding obvious: This is Indonesia remember? For starters: Reports by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the United States Department of State highlighted the most common human rights issues in Indonesia, namely the situation in Western New Guinea region, the treatment of religious, gender and sexual minorities, sexual and reproductive rights, the rights of women, children, LGBT, and the … Continue reading Because they have even more insensitive leaders than the UK does?

After climbing to 2 622 new cases on the 31st December, the infection level has only once been higher at 2 649 yesterday, in the last 8 days. The 7 day average has been pretty much the same for four days. I know the death and hospitalisation rates are disturbing but the flattening of the infection rate and the vaccines mean they will fall. The infection level in England and Wales is more than two times higher. Once again, I think you can trust people. Continue reading It might be high but it’s definitley flat

Bob Dylan warned us about following leaders. I have no heroes beyond Noam Chomsky and the late Edward Said, though profs Sridhar and Bauld are getting there, for their young age. We’ve been here before with the beatification of wholly undeserving rock stars. Bowie was a deeply cynical man, happy to play with the darkest of ideas in pursuit of his art. I don’t entirely blame him for that but he was no hero and certainly no model for the rest of us. Playing above with Nazi imagery is, you might say, just a bit of fun or even irony … Continue reading Not Cynical? What, like this?

STV’s Jenness Mitchell might want to use a different photo for this kind of story unless it really does reflect the mood at STV when they got their hands on this big number headline. This is classic tabloid statistics where if the number isn’t big enough to impress readers you just add up over a longer period until you get what you want. As for context that might help the reader understand what is happening in the world they live in, there’s none. Here’s some: The death rate, over the last 7 days is far lower in Scotland than in … Continue reading but the rate is now lower than it was at Christmas?

According to a report by BBC Teeside: Dr Paul Williams, former Labour MP for Stockton South, which said: “Some local patients have turned down an offer this weekend of getting a Covid vaccine when they found out it was the Pfizer one. ‘I’ll wait for the English one’.” Dr Williams was a GP and continued to see patients while he was an MP. After being voted out in 2019 he has worked at North Tees Hospital. The BBC has now offered this evidence that the American multinational Pfizer‘s vaccine developed in Germany by two Turkish-Germans and manufactured in Belgium, is more … Continue reading Covid-19: Teeside Patients ‘want to wait for less-effective English vaccine’

As patients were recently transferred over the border into a Dumfries hospital due to resilience issues in NHS England, the First Minister did not comment, though the PM had tried to pretend there were would be some issues of resilience in NHS Scotland back in March. Today we hear from the BBC in England: The number of hours ambulances spent waiting to offload patients in parts of England is “off the scale”, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine says. Data leaked to BBC News shows ambulance waiting times at hospitals in the South East rose by 36% in December compared … Continue reading Sturgeon to make no comment on issues with resilience of NHS England

Readers will remember the PM’s comments in March 2020: And of course, his comments yesterday on the US vaccine manufactured in the EU: He is not expected to comment on this story hidden away in the Independent yesterday: Coronavirus patients needing urgent medical treatment in northern England are being sent to Scotland as an increasing number of hospitals now face being overwhelmed. Patients in Cumbria who would normally be taken to the Cumberland Infirmary in Carlisle have instead been dispatched across the border to Dumfries, The Independent has learnt. The move came after the hospital triggered the highest Opel (operational pressures escalation level) alert, essentially an admission of … Continue reading Sturgeon to make no comment on ‘issues’ with England’s NHS

AMBULANCES were turned away by a major Scots hospital today amid rising Covid cases and injuries in the icy weather.  Several emergency calls were redirected from the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital as it struggled to cope with a sudden influx of patients this morning.  Were they redirected from the incident location or did they turn up at the QEUH A&E department to be ‘turned away?’ They have radios. Does anyone really think they turned up to be turned away? How many calls were redirected? Ten. What percentage of calls is that? Too small to report? What is the source of … Continue reading redirected to another hospital only two miles away in the same city?

According to the Herald: THE rollout of Covid vaccines to the over-80s could be stalled as thousands of GPs and primary care staff have yet to receive any inoculation. There are warnings that unvaccinated doctors do not feel safe to start bringing hundreds of elderly patients into GP practices from next week. The ‘warnings’ come from Andy Mcintosh who runs an online forum GP Survival Scotland. They are only a Facebook page with an empty ‘About us’ section and less than 4 000 followers who may be doctors across the UK. There are around than 60 000 GPs in the … Continue reading Do GPs do jags?