Fact 1: In May, SAGE called for 80% of positive cases contacted within 48hours: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/888807/S0402_Thirty-second_SAGE_meeting_on_Covid-19_.pdf There is no 24 hour target. Fact 2: The Sun’s Chris Musson claimed that: Corrected data shows that in five of eight weeks in September and October, Test and Protect staff failed to contact about half of positive cases within 24 hours of  being notified of swab results but he was wrong to use the 24 hour ‘target’ as no such target has ever been agreed. Fact 3: In the weeks Musson chose, the percentage contacted within 48 hours was: Week ending: % 6 Sept: … Continue reading FACT CHECK: Settling the Scottish Contact tracing farago

What the Ferret ‘fact checker’ claims: Scotland’s health secretary wanted to suspend freedom of information (FoI) legislation in response to the coronavirus pandemic, according to internal government emails obtained by The Ferret. What the email says: To read more, you need to sign in to your Ferret account using the form below. Only our members get unlimited access to all our stories. Support us I won’t be subscribing to see the email they got through FoI because I don’t trust the Ferret (just look at the photo they chose, above) and they have previous: ANAS SARWAR, THE FERRET AND HIS … Continue reading More weasel than Ferret?

Note: The trend for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is down, if slowly. Yesterday Prof Sridhar tweeted: Here’s the article about the USA: You’ll see the graph above with a bit more detail, takes Scotland well away from the extreme situation in which Sridhar sees Sweden and clarifies the awful achievement of the Johnson regime in England. The notion popular in some quarters that ‘Sturgeon’ is just a better communicator and that her government has not really done better in coping with the pandemic is blown out of the water by this. Continue reading ‘out of control’

The Ross effect seems only good for the SNP with another full poll showing the party 37% clear and Tories below 20% for 3 of the last 4. The share of constituency and regional votes, below, would give a clear overall majority and another mandate for Indyref2. What is most clear is that nothing the Scottish Nomedia can do to undermine the SNP support seems to work. Perhaps we’re seeing a reverse media effect. Scunnered by the less-than-subtle lies and distortion, once unsure supporters are moving toward more certain support. Even more dramatic, 69% support the Scottish Government’s pandemic strategy … Continue reading SNP and Yes maintain massive leads post-Douglas

Public Health Scotland’s spreadsheet algorithm has had an error leading to over-statement of contact tracing results. They are worse than they seemed before BUT…they’re still far better than the jackals seem to think. The opposition parties and their media pals cannot contain their glee. Like supporters of a ‘minnow team’ who beat the Rangers one-nil, once in a 100 years, they cannot contain themselves enough to hear the full story. First, the 24 hour target does not exist. In May, SAGE suggested that for a test and trace system to be effective, 80% contacted within 48 hours was desirable. Click … Continue reading Scotland’s ignorant Nomedia Nicola pile-on sickens

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has become an accredited Living Wage employer. Only NHS Lanarkshire and Public Health Scotland precede them. It’s quite an achievement given their size. From their announcement yesterday: The recognition comes during Living Wage Week and has been warmly welcomed by Living Wage Scotland and the Poverty Alliance.NHSGGC’s Living Wage commitment will see everyone working for the Health Board receive the minimum hourly wage, which will rise each year to match future rates. This new Living Wage rate of £9.50 was announced on Monday (9 November) as part of Living Wage Week. Full time workers receiving … Continue reading NHSGGC becomes a Living Wage Employer

To reveal the above, the researchers at the universities of Leicester and Nottingham looked at data from eight UK and 42 US studies. Shame they did not look for one more, close to home, just over the border, in Scotland. It’s very interesting. In Scotland: 4.1% (225 000) of the Scottish population is recorded as one of the non-White ethnic minority groups yet they only make up 1% of the Covid-19 deaths. ‘https://www.statista.com/statistics/367842/scotland-ethnicity-of-population/ Footnote: Even if we extract the Asian group, 2.6% of the population, they have only 0.9% of the deaths. Footnote 2: Were any of the 8.9% unrecorded BAME? Doesn’t … Continue reading So, why four times LESS likely than white Scots?

From Brenda Steele: Tweeted by the excellent MSM_Monitor and prompting me to look at it by the also excellent YESIndyref 2 linklist site   https://indyref2.space/forum/topic/links-thursday-12-november-2020/ BBC Scotland is running another ‘England good/Scotland bad’ Covid attack. Styled as a ‘BBC investigation’ it reports there are no clinics for ‘long Covid’ in Scotland. There aren’t any in England either, they’re being set up. We’re preparing too but it doesn’t fit the narrative. There was a Question at the FM Briefing about that. It was Derek Healy from the Courier – Question number 9  (of 14)  This is from him in the Courier. Long Covid: ‘We … Continue reading No long Covid clinics in England SHOCK

In the Herald today as part of its campaign to help with the pandemic strategy: The chief executive of the firm which owns Glasgow Airport has thrown the gauntlet down to government to support the aviation sector, declaring that mass testing must be pressed into action to get the stricken industry back up and running. ‘Thrown down the gauntlet?‘ Is that a tad confrontational? does it imply the Government is being a tad unhelpful on purpose? And, ‘government?’ Neither ‘UK Government’ nor ‘Scottish Government’ is used. The aviation industry is a reserved matter so it would have helped, to inform … Continue reading Well he would, wouldn’t he?

The ‘leading’ or ‘top academic’ has been here before making exactly the same comments to the same Herald journalist, Hannah Rodger. Today, he arrives, Pennington-like, to tell us it is not likely that ‘the country’ will be prepared for mass immunisation by December. Like many academics based in Scotland, he struggles to see any differences with rUK and uses comments from the UK Health Secretary and the CMO England to get his argument going. Prof Greening was here on May 10th, saying the same things. I wrote then: I see little sign that the prof has researched the Scottish context. … Continue reading Another unqualified expert to fuel doubt in SNP Government’s abilities