While new infections each day are stubbornly high around 1 000, with the rate falling too slowly for comfort, new admissions to hospital have been falling steadily since a peak on the 25th October, more than 2 weeks ago. This and the flattening of the ICU and death rates suggests the strategy is working and that the vulnerable are being protected, as we see the arrival of widespread vaccination on the horizon. It also makes clear that NHS Scotland will cope as it did in the first wave. Meanwhile, ‘our’ media choose to ramp up the panic with a highly … Continue reading One clear sign of success

By Brenda Steele: In this interview with the BBC, Professor Allyson Pollock spells it out. Mass testing of the populace is a waste of money. https://mobile.twitter.com/Christi46847375/status/1325881466086182913 However this evidently has not percolated to the Scottish part of the BBC for the first question at the Scotgov Covid-19 press briefing from Lisa Summers was on this very subject. https://mobile.twitter.com/scotgov/status/1326498723418034179  at about 20m 37s in Not only did she not understand that mass testing in England was a waste of money, but she added her own special Scottish take.  Apparently such tests “could make the difference to the level we find ourselves … Continue reading Lisa’s Mass Testing Misconception

STV News tonight featured a report on alleged increases in Do Not Resuscitate orders, based on one case. The evidence came from one relative with no comment from the health board to inform the viewer. There appears to be no scientific evidence of any increase in the use of DNR orders during the pandemic and one Scottish Government spokesperson has been clear: The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about absolutely no change to the use of Do Not Attempt CPR forms in the Scottish NHS and no change to the advice issued to GPs about their use. We always expect medical … Continue reading No matter how tragic this is not THE news

On the 1st May 2020, the UK Government’s advisory group outlined the targets for an effective test and trace system: Note 80% contacted as soon as tested positive, within 48 hours if possible. In week-ending 8th November, Public Health Scotland reported: Even at the current high level of testing, 96.1% tested within 24 hours. Continue reading Scotland’s Contact and Support teams smash SAGE target!

How did this one-pub story make it to BBC Scotland? Does it reveal something wider? Staff at The Riverside Bar were told to close by Dumfries and Galloway Council’s environmental health team on Friday. It does not have a kitchen but bartender Anna Houston said they believed, like other pubs in the town, that they were permitted to sell alcoholic drinks outside. “At 16:00 on Friday the council came and closed us, and that was it – they gave us a letter saying ‘if you don’t have a kitchen, you can’t be open’,” she said. The bartender said: The whole … Continue reading Meiyou chufang, ranhou guanbi

The Sun’s Chris Musson is correct: 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. Musson doesn’t tell us that, based on that same spreadsheet, 100% were, in the end, contacted. https://beta.isdscotland.org/find-publications-and-data/population-health/covid-19/covid-19-statistical-report/ According to SAGE, at least 80% of contacts must be reached. In the week-ending 14th October, one of the weeks Musson was interested in, only 59.6% were contacted, at all, ever, by England’s outsourced and ‘world-beating’ test and trace system. In the week … Continue reading Sun misses the point as ‘Nic’s system’ contacts 100% of confirmed cases

On the 20th October, peer-reviewed research in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health was clear: [F]ewer people would have died, life expectancy would have been substantially higher and health inequalities narrower, had the tax and benefit ‘reforms’ introduced since 2010/2011 (and planned until 2021/2022) not been implemented. Reversing the UK tax and welfare reforms since 2010/2011 and ensuring that the population have the incomes they require to live healthy and fulfilling lives should now be a public policy priority for the UK as we build back better from COVID-19. The authors estimate 2 054 additional deaths due to UK … Continue reading More than 2 000 deaths due to Tory cuts in Scotland ignored by media

The Scotsman did catch this dramatic news but BBC Scotland and our other Nomedia missed it. From Engerati on the 9th November: The European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC), Orkney, Scotland will deploy an Invinity Energy Systems (AIM:IES) 1.8MWh flow battery at EMEC’s tidal energy test site on the island of Eday. This unique combination of tidal power and flow batteries will be used to power EMEC’s hydrogen production plant, demonstrating continuous hydrogen production from variable renewable generation. The commercialisation of green hydrogen is an essential step toward a 100% renewable future. Green hydrogen is created and consumed without carbon emissions … Continue reading world’s first continuous green hydrogen production funded by Scottish Government goes missing

By stewartb Since late October on his website, in the Edinburgh Evening News and on Twitter, Ian Murray MP has been casting doubt on the Scottish Government’s decision making on the level of Covid-19 restrictions being applied to the City of Edinburgh. On his web site he makes this remark: “I was astonished to see Edinburgh placed in Tier 3 given that the criteria used has (sic) Edinburgh at 2, 3, 0, 0, 0 which should place it in Tier 2. We have a lower score than most areas in Tier 2. The question now becomes how you move from … Continue reading Is this a Labour thing?

By Brenda Steele: Although the announcement of the new vaccine is great news, the excessive enthusiasm of the UK media and the UK Government’s headlong rush to distribute and inoculate with such a new product scares me.  The WHO urges caution.  WHO envoy welcomes vaccine breakthrough, but urges caution. Dr Nabarro said yesterday’s announcement “is advance warning of something brilliant”, but we must be prepared to wait several more weeks, or even months, before a vaccine is ready for use.  Based on supply projections, Pfizer and BioNTech said they expect to supply up to 50 million vaccine doses globally in … Continue reading Vaccine Vacuity