Tag: covid-19

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BBC Scotland’s Andrew Picken and Lisa Summers return to condemn one of the safest hospitals in Scotland with cheap, ill-informed and jaundiced reporting on infections and the child deaths NOT caused by them

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Support Talking-up Scotland’s work to counter the lies and get you the facts, daily, at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/checkout/help-talking-up-scotland-tell-truth-about-scotland/payment/nBQxjVzq/details Professor John Robertson OBA BBC Scotland return today with an extended piece on the re-convened public inquiry into ‘safety and wellbeing issues‘ at two Scottish hospitals, the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow and Royal Hospital for Children in Edinburgh. I’ll deal only with the former here. The BBC text is presented as quotes with my rebuttals below them in plain text: In the coming weeks it will examine contentious new evidence from Glasgow’s health board about the risk of infection from the water and ventilation … Continue reading BBC Scotland’s Andrew Picken and Lisa Summers return to condemn one of the safest hospitals in Scotland with cheap, ill-informed and jaundiced reporting on infections and the child deaths NOT caused by them

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Will Jackie Baillie now retract her claim that hospital discharges caused unlawful care home Covid deaths?

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Support Talking-up Scotland’s work to counter the lies and get you the facts, daily, at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/checkout/help-talking-up-scotland-tell-truth-about-scotland/payment/nBQxjVzq/details or, if you prefer, a bank transfer, at sort code 089300 account 1421 7339 Professor John Robertson OBA In May 2022, the above claims were being made repeatedly by Scottish Labour. Here is a typical example: Jackie Baillie has demanded Nicola Sturgeon faces up to the “unlawful, unreasonable and irrational” decisions her Government made by discharging patients from hospital to care homes at the height of the pandemic which cost lives. Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar raised the issue at First Minister’s Questions this … Continue reading Will Jackie Baillie now retract her claim that hospital discharges caused unlawful care home Covid deaths?

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As Scottish Government release new vaccine guidance, how babies have been better protected from whooping cough in Scotland

johnrobertson834

Support Talking-up Scotland’s work to counter the lies and get you the facts, daily, at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/checkout/help-talking-up-scotland-tell-truth-about-scotland/payment/nBQxjVzq/detailsProfessor John Robertson OBA From Public Health Scotland today – Whooping cough vaccine. Protect your baby from whooping cough: https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/whooping-cough-vaccine-protect-your-baby-from-whooping-cough/ It’s good to see no resting on laurels here. In July 2024, from the BMJ: Nine infants died from whooping cough in England between November last year and the end of May 2024, the UK Health Security Agency has reported. Altogether a total of 7599 cases of whooping cough have been confirmed in England this year, with cases continuing to rise from 555 in January to … Continue reading As Scottish Government release new vaccine guidance, how babies have been better protected from whooping cough in Scotland

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Research – SNP Government’s early action and £4m spent on RSV vaccine for over 75s achieves 63% more coverage than NHS England, slashes hospitalisation rates and will have saved many lives

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The Talking-up Scotland fund raiser primarily, finishing in 14 days, to enable the recruitment of some research assistance, in order to take pressure off me [74 in June and tiring] and hopefully to further improve the blog, has made a good start. To contribute, only if you can (!) go to: Talking-up Scotland – a Politics crowdfunding project in Ayr by Professor John Robertson By Professor John Robertson OBA, former Faculty Research Ethics Chair, UWS BBC Scotland have reported RSV vaccine cuts hospital stays for older people but you’d never know from their broadcasts or the fuller website report, unless you read 13 … Continue reading Research – SNP Government’s early action and £4m spent on RSV vaccine for over 75s achieves 63% more coverage than NHS England, slashes hospitalisation rates and will have saved many lives

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NHS Scotland coping with THREE TIMES as many flu cases as Scotland shivers under Labour UK fuel allowance cuts and price increases

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From BBC Health, this morning: There is deep concern at a senior level in the NHS about rising rates of flu. The number of patients in hospital with flu continues to climb, according to latest NHS figures in England. Last week, the numbers averaged 5,407 a day – up from just under 4,500 the week before. As we mentioned a moment ago, the numbers in hospital have risen again over the past week, with nearly 5,000 beds occupied on average last week by patients struggling with the virus. NHS England’s emergency care director Prof Julian Redhead says there are no … Continue reading NHS Scotland coping with THREE TIMES as many flu cases as Scotland shivers under Labour UK fuel allowance cuts and price increases

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Lib Dumbs have another go at making up the numbers to reveal police Scotland staff have well below UK level of absences for ‘psychological disorders, including anxiety, depression, and stress’

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Today, on BBC Reporting Scotland, faithfully repeating what’s in 1919, an online mag with no peer-review and no standards of referencing, dedicated to representing uncritically the views of the police officers’ trade union and any opposition politician who will help them claim they’re hard done by, in Scotland: The number of working days lost to mental ill health in Police Scotland has surged by more than 50 per cent over the past five years. Since 2019, officers and staff have taken a total of 440,630 days off due to psychological disorders, including anxiety, depression, and stress. The findings come amid … Continue reading Lib Dumbs have another go at making up the numbers to reveal police Scotland staff have well below UK level of absences for ‘psychological disorders, including anxiety, depression, and stress’

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Only BBC Scotland attempts a scare on a supposed ‘flu surge’ despite admitting ‘relatively little pressure’ in the country with the most GPs, nurses and beds and the cleanest hospitals

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By Professor John Robertson OBA BBC Scotland today, above and with this contradictory evidence further down:: The data found, external that among care homes in the country a “substantial number” had found influenza circulating, but residents were confirmed as having taken the flu vaccine to combat it. PHS noted only “a small number of deaths” had been reported among care homes. For intensive care units, the flu had caused “relatively little pressure” but PHS noted there was one case of a pregnant woman admitted to ICU due to influenza in the most recent reporting. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2l96730lyo BBC England? No flu surge in England? Well: Flu … Continue reading Only BBC Scotland attempts a scare on a supposed ‘flu surge’ despite admitting ‘relatively little pressure’ in the country with the most GPs, nurses and beds and the cleanest hospitals

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The use of imagined cancer deaths to attack SNP health secretaries

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By Professor John Robertson OBA Two days ago, I noticed this research report from the USA casting doubt on the effectiveness of cancer treatment to avert a spike in deaths: At the peak of the shortage, about 15% of patients probably had trouble accessing a platinum chemotherapy drug, the study found. But there was good news, too: Despite the shortages, the study team could find no difference in death rates for patients with solid tumor cancers in 2023 versus the year before. https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2024-12-24/last-years-platinum-based-drugs-shortage-didnt-raise-cancer-deaths-study-found#:~:text=At%20the%20peak%20of%20the,2023%20versus%20the%20year%20before. I was then reminded of two previous times when opposition parties and their pals in the ‘Scottish’ media had used … Continue reading The use of imagined cancer deaths to attack SNP health secretaries

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Covid care home deaths – the thousands saved and lost in Scotland and England

johnrobertson834

On 22 January 2021, BBC UK had a special report on the anxiety in English and Welsh care homes that they were being left behind in the vaccine rollout. They had the above graphic and the percentages showed Scotland to be well ahead on the curve. Days earlier, in response to a question by Philippa Whitford, Matt Hancock confirmed that only 24% of care home residents in England had been vaccinated. On the same day, the First Minister of Scotland indicated that 80% of care home residents and staff had now been vaccinated. Some councils, Inverclyde and North Ayrshire claimed … Continue reading Covid care home deaths – the thousands saved and lost in Scotland and England

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Scottish Conservatives Leader argues on behalf of hostile journalists who actively misled us on how Nicola Sturgeon, according to their own top civil servant, showed the UK Government ‘how to do it’

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Professor John Robertson OBA Thanks to AR for alerting me to this. Russell Findlay, a former journo himself, is in the Scotsman today arguing, with great irony, that the SNP had created a hostile atmosphere and were preventing scrutiny during the pandemic. That is, of course, the opposite of what happened, according to Dr Simon Case, Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service under Boris Johnson PM, and his top adviser, at the Covid Inquiry.  From the National in May 2024: NICOLA Sturgeon was showing the Tory government “how to do it” during the Covid pandemic, according to WhatsApp messages sent … Continue reading Scottish Conservatives Leader argues on behalf of hostile journalists who actively misled us on how Nicola Sturgeon, according to their own top civil servant, showed the UK Government ‘how to do it’