UKH

One thing that I've never got my head around is why hasn't Scotland (until today?) reported any Covid deaths for weeks yet England reports a steady, but small number every day?  My wife was in Scotland a few weeks back and said there was an attitude of 'England has been really bad, Scotland bad not no where near as bad'.  And I get a sense that many folk think Sturgeon etc. has done a better job of controlling it (eg. releasing lockdown measures slower).  So I did some googling:

Pop Scotland:  5.5 mill.  Excess deaths to 3rd August:  4893 = 0.89 deaths per 1,000

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-52214177

Pop England:  56 mill.  Excess deaths to 14th Aug:  53,378 = 0.95 deaths per 1,000

https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/static-reports/mortality-surveillance/excess-...

Given factors such as England has a bigger BME population, is more densely populated (both appear to be factors) and Scotland had a few weeks head start in getting sorted, the difference between England and Scotland is not as big as I thought.

Why is this?  Is England over diagnosing/reporting?  Scotland under diagnosing/reporting?  Or is it me just being thick?

In reply to mick taylor:

For all the political bluster, the responses to COVID were pretty similar, so the outcomes would also be pretty similar.  What's impressive is the SNP have arranged the narrative so that a) everyone thinks Scotland did better and b) the SNP are responsible for this.  Good politics.

In reply to MG:

Appears that way. I have wondered for a while now that if Scotland still getting the infections, how come big parts of the media have reported “no covid deaths for x weeks”. Doesn’t make sense. 

In reply to mick taylor:

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/health-53592881
According to this ONS study, England had a much greater increase in deaths than the rest of the U.K. 

I don’t know how that squares with your calculation, but one factor is that the normal death rate is higher in Scotland; average age is higher and life expectancy is lower. 

In reply to stevieb:

My calculations are more up to date. That article dates end July and uses data until end May (I think). England knocked 5,000 deaths of the stats in a oner the other week. 

And just been on Glasgow Times website.  Sturgeon said of the 40 excess deaths last week could be simply ‘fluctuations’. The article references the first covid deaths (2) since July, but then describes last week had six possible covid deaths, an increase on three for the week before.

I’m missing some of the detail, but you get the drift. She knows how utilise the data and manage the media.  

In reply to MG:

Good politics, but also effective communication. That may be a factor as Boris was largely invisible (and not in command of detail?).

Did England have a Jason Leech appearing on the weekly football radio show and other talk shows etc etc etc to discuss Covid or did he/she/they just do official statements and adverts? He was impressive in reaching audiences outwith news and current affairs programmes.

https://www.gov.scot/about/how-government-is-run/directorates/healthcare-qu...

The growth of the pandemic was similar (total deaths for population not that different?), but managing the decline in Scotland appears* to be better.

*appears and probably genuinely was better.

One notable difference is that in England alone was contact tracing centralised and outsourced to newly recruited people sitting at home with a laptop. That's being abandoned.

In the rest of the UK and many countries worldwide contact tracing is done by local government and local health services with local knowledge who have been doing the job for decades. At the time England was dealing with 1000 cases in Leicester the big case in Scotland was a ten or twenty cases (SW Scotland, NW England) so at that time England looked vastly less competent to complacently let an outbreak to grow 50-1000 times larger.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/10/world/europe/contact-tracing-england-ove...

The definition of covid confirmed death is now the same across the UK so any difference looks genuine.

In reply to mick taylor:

England knocked 5000 off the reported Covid deaths; they didn’t (and can’t)  knock anything off excess deaths, which is what all these studies relate to. Maybe the dates are significant though. 

In reply to elsewhere:

Yes, the communication aspect was/is vastly better in Scotland. Sturgeon seems genuinely good at it and to care. Johnson can barely string two words together and doesn't give a shit.  You are probably right about tracing too.  If anything, I think the care home thing was worse in SCotland, by contrast.

In reply to stevieb:

Agree

In reply to mick taylor:

Sturgeon has 45-55% of Scotland being her own personal cheerleader. They're so invested in the independence cause that they don't dare question the SNP or Sturgeon for fear of damaging the cause. 

They're also desperate to prove how much better they'd be at running their own country, so hype the ever loving shit out of their fractionally better COVID handling, despite most of it likely to be environmental factors (Lower BAME population, lower population density cities, etc).. 

Also, I'm not convinced by the idea of Sturgeon being that much better of a communicator. She just had less partisan opposition looking to nit pick every little detail, of every word said. Communication from Boris was mostly fine, if you didn't literally go looking for gotchas in what he said. The theme was pretty simple to understand each time they announced measures. 

The Scottish governments releasing of the phases that Scotland would go through to get out of lockdown was a confusing and convoluted mess, but everyone just gave it a pass. 

In reply to GripsterMoustache:

https://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/poll-majority-scots-think-nicola-stu...

The Scotsman so not an SNP supporting newspaper.

Quote begins

More than half (55 per cent) of the 1,006 adults polled said they thought the Prime Minister had handled the outbreak “fairly badly” or “very badly”.

Just 30 per cent of respondents said Mr Johnson was doing “fairly well” or “very well”.

In contrast, 82 per cent of those polled said Nicola Sturgeon had handled the crisis “fairly well” or “very well”.

Quote ends.

Note 82% approval is essentially cross party and far exceeds SNP or independence support.

Sturgeon's popularity is not restricted to SNP supporters, it's not even restricted to Scotland. She's the most popular across the whole UK. YouGov survey for The Times, again not an SNP newspaper.

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/explore/public_figure/Nicola_Sturgeon

Compare Sturgeon/Johnson approval ratings. In Scotland Johnson is not viewed as mostly fine.

https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/yougov-polling-on-scottish-ind...

In reply to elsewhere:

I am aware of the perception of Sturgeons competence. The actual results tell a different story, don't they? As near as matters no difference in outcome. 

Sturgeon also benefits from being able to blame everything that goes wrong on Westminster, and take credit for everything that goes right. She's got it down to an absolute art. 

In reply to mick taylor:

The reporting for a long while was skewed by the differing classifications of Covid deaths in England vs the rest of the U.K. - since the reclassification numbers are much more in line with population.

In reply to GripsterMoustache:

That perception is not due to SNP supporters or those invested in independence.

In reply to Dr.S at work:

Scotland had 2 covid deaths in the last month. England with about ten times the population had about a hundred and fifty times more Covid deaths in the last month (currently about ten per day). 

The perception that Westminster is delivering poor results has some basis in reality.

In reply to mick taylor:

Given there are a thousand deaths per week for all causes then a quick and basic estimate is fluctuations of +-30 and that would be an underestimate (Poisson distribution not a great assumption but quick and basic).

Looking at actual data for this time of year over the last few years then week to week fluctuations of 40-100 are normal.

I'm impressed with the command of detail if she genuinely knew 40 excess deaths is within the usual fluctuations.

Data for 1974 to July 2020.

https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/files//statistics/weekly-monthly-births-death...

https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/statistics-and-data/statistics/statistics-by-...

In reply to elsewhere:

Yes - but the numbers being reported before the 28 day reclassification were much higher - hundreds a day rather than hundreds a month, no?

It’s clear Scotland has had a ‘better’ outbreak than England - but both countries have done badly from a global perspective.

In reply to elsewhere:

Re Sturgeon - yes she’s been pretty impressive, Far more so than any one in the U.K. government at a similar level other than Rishi.

In reply to elsewhere:

1). Assuming those figures correct, then why is England so massively worse than Scotland?  Scottish hospitals better?

2) But my main point is: that excess deaths are what really matters as this to an extent nullifies the differences in reporting/diagnosing Covid deaths and England and Scotland are very similar and more similar than I originally thought (and everyone I know thinks same).

Genuinly interested, no Eng vs Scot nonesense from me

In reply to GripsterMoustache:

This is a load of simplistic shite.  There are plenty of independence supporters who are more than willing to criticise the SNP/ Sturgeon and plenty of unionists who can see positives about them. But that doesn't fit with your narrative does it?

In reply to GripsterMoustache:

This is what I get from my family living in Scotland. Labour or liberal in politics, highly educated, would now almost do anything that Sturgeon says and think England is totally riddled with virus compared to Scotland. My wife sensed an increasing anti English sentiment when she was up there. 

In reply to elsewhere:

According to this, the figure you quote of ‘2 in the last month’ is the figure that Sturgeon etc like to roll out and is not comparable with England’s figures (or remotely accurate in my view) and gives the public a false impression:

https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/statistics-and-data/statistics/statistics-by-...
 

In reply to mick taylor:

1. A factor of 2 is a lot.

2. Population density at the national level doesn't mean anything.   Scotland has a low population density because there are large areas where almost nobody lives e.g. Cairngorms.   Most people live in the large cities of the Central belt.  The thing that would matter for Covid transmission is the population density in the cities not in the mountains.

3. Scotland can't do much better than England while it is in a political union with England.   Since lockdown was raised there's too many people crossing the border for Scotland to have a much lower infection rate than England.   Most of the media is repeating the 'back to normal' message from UK government and people are responding to it.  Sturgeon does not have authority to borrow or print money and she only controls about half of the money spent by Government in Scotland.  She can't do anything radically different e.g. longer furlough period because her budget is the same.  If England decides lockdown is over and furlough is stopping Scotland has to follow.   Maybe she can push it out a few weeks but fundamentally the big decisions are made by the dickheads in London and if the f*ck up Scotland gets f*cked up almost as bad as England.

In reply to mick taylor:

Hi Mick - I think that there are three figures quoted - the 'death certificate' one you link to there is also published for england but does not get the prominence of the "tested positive" figure.

I'd not doubt the numbers reported by any of the UK administrations - the coding difference from PHE (28 days or not) is now resolved, but as I say upthread that did make england look dramatically worse.

How are Wales and NI doing anyway? - always neglected in these Scot vs Eng comparisons.

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

What is this 'factor of 2'?

'Since lockdown was raised there's too many people crossing the border for Scotland to have a much lower infection rate than England.'

From this I assume you think people crossing the boarder has such a big influence?  I don't, the recent infection increases in Scotland appear to be due to dimwits out drinking and food processing plants.

For the record, I loathe BoJo's government, but I think the 'back to normal message' is on the whole the correct message (excess deaths below the 5 year average).

In reply to mick taylor:

Comparing Scotland and England is pretty pointless. It implies they’re separate countries, in complete control of their respective policies and C-19 response. 

In reply to Dr.S at work:

I wonder if the "suspected" Scottish cases that are reported correspond to that classification.

True.

In reply to mick taylor:

Suspected Covid on death certificate outnumbers died within 28 days of positive Covid test. I think that is true for both countries and is the cause of recent change in English stats.

Current headline stats for comparison (died within 28 days of positive Covid test) are a couple per month Vs a few hundred per month. 

In reply to mick taylor:

The peak is the same but managing the decline marginally better for the long haul. It's like exponential decline or a geometric series. Marginally better every week raised to the power of 15 over 15 weeks has a huge impact. 

Communication to keep R lower, not centralising contact tracing. Sturgeon speaking 5 times a week (other ministers did weekends) Vs some random minister.

I agree that excess deaths about the same. That is not the difference as that was largely determined by how far disease was allowed to grow before lockdown.

The difference is that UK deaths per head of population have declined slowly by international standards and that is mainly due to slow decline in England.

I don't think doctors or the population in England are stupid. I do think politicians in England are stupid. Are they reluctant to drop individualist political philosophy in the face of an apoltical  virus for which the risk is largely collective?

The quote of the PM below suggests they may be that dumb.

"And in that context, we are starting to hear some bizarre autarkic rhetoric, when barriers are going up, and when there is a risk that new diseases such as coronavirus will trigger a panic and a desire for market segregation that go beyond what is medically rational to the point of doing real and unnecessary economic damage, then at that moment humanity needs some government somewhere that is willing at least to make the case powerfully for freedom of exchange, some country ready to take off its Clark Kent spectacles and leap into the phone booth and emerge with its cloak flowing as the supercharged champion, of the right of the populations of the earth to buy and sell freely among each other."

In reply to mick taylor:

In reality Sturgeon can only tinker at COVID management, the main policy thrust is from Westminster. Much of the tinkering she has done and particularly her messaging has been positive.

In reply to GripsterMoustache:

Got to disagree with you there (and I am no supporter of independence). You should try listening to her briefings, and compare with Johnson's rambling babblings. Seriously, I recommend it. And if you listen to the parliamentary briefings then you'll see that Carlaw and more recently Davidson are highly partisan (and highly obnoxious), and are doing their best to nit pick every little detail. They're just ending up looking like pricks for doing it.

In reply to elsewhere:

That is a marvellous exemplar of Johnson's hopeless ineptitude. For reasons which I cannot begin to fathom, he must think such language seems impressive. I'm not quite sure why his advisers don't take him quietly to one side and tell him "With respect PM, you're talking bollocks'. 

By contrast, Sturgeon, for all the failings of the Scottish NHS, particularly with respect to care homes, has been straightforward and clear. It's little wonder her standing has improved. Mind you, Johnson does set a low bar. 

In reply to MG:

What's impressive is that Sturgeon, was honest, concise and didn't u-turn on a daily basis.

Her presentations were exemplary, made by her and not some hapless lackey, and most of all ministerial.

She took it seriously from day one and wasn't blasé or dismissive about the threat we were facing.

Good politics indeed, but not the "cover my arse and make sure I make the right sort of noises" politics, not that we even got much of that.

In reply to DaveHK:

Absolutely. Sturgeon's communication has been vastly better than Johnson's. There has been none of the mixed messaging that the UK government has been spouting and, as a result, none of the fuss we hear of down south over such things as schools opening and mask wearing. It hasn't been perfect but the clear timetable the Scottish government produced for opening up (with some dates being brought forward when possible) has been reassuring compared with the UK government's approach. 

Sturgeon is, I think, widely respected by Nationalists and Unionists alike for her handling of the crisis, and seeing a Scottish government so much more compoetent than the UK one is undoubtedly making many people more receptive to the idea of independence.

In reply to elsewhere:

Has it though? I think you’ve got a much better grasp of the stats of this than me, but picking some euro countries with biggish outbreaks.

https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart/?areas=gbr&areas=deu&areas=esp&...
 

the U.K. is very similar in rate of decline to Italy, faster than sweden and Germany, slower than Spain (and France).

In reply to mick taylor: An amusing observation is that if you compare raw deaths by week for Scotland versus Englans is that the curves are very similar in shape w.r.t. peaks and shoulders, but England is about 10 days behins Scotland as Westminster have consistently copied Scotland after a bit of huffing and puffing

In reply to The New NickB:

Good observation. I suspect that if she was in the hotseat it might be the other way round.After all she has not had to put together things like the furlough scheme etc.

I do not doubt she comes across as very clear and concise, all credit to her, but all the science . money etc is coming from elsewhere.Her focus is simplier so she is able to deliver a stronger message.

10/10 to her  for the politics.

In reply to Dr.S at work:

Flattering, but dubious!

Yes Germany has a slow decline, but the UK has yet to catch up with German success.

You can't get a steep decline from low levels - see NZ graph as the ultimate example.

https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart/?areas=gbr&areas=deu&areas=nzl&...

In reply to The New NickB:

Let's see how important tinkering is using plausible R=3 (ish) and R=0.9 (ish) over 4 months.

Supposing R=3 in March and Westminster lockdown reduced R by 70%.

R=3(1-0.7)=0.9

Using German* assumption that 4 days is the correct timescale for calculating R so raise R to power 30.

After 120 days 0.9**30=0.04 

Supposing R=3 in March and Holyrood lockdown reduced R by 72%.

R=3(1-0.72)=0.84

Again same German assumption so raise to the power 30.

After 120 days 0.84**30=0.005

That means after four months that if the Holyrood lockdown has 2% greater effect then England has 8 times as many deaths per day as Scotland even if they start out the same at the beginning of the four months.

When raising an R number to the power 30 (which is reasonable) then tinkering has a huge effect.

R will fluctuate as populations are not represented by such trivial maths but a consistently worse/better R has a large impact when multiplied together thirty times. 

*Robert Koch Insitute

In reply to wbo2:

My guess is that if it hadn't have been for the SNP government on Scotland being consistently more 'conservative' and precautionary on Covid and providing an alternative to compare against the Tories would have had more freedom of action and the number of deaths in England would be a lot higher because they'd have stuck with the 'herd immunity' bullsh*t longer and opened up faster.

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

But surely we can’t just judge the success of the Scottish vs UK government policies on R rates and excess death rates alone.

It’s seemed quite clear to me from the outset that the UK government has been trying to walk a tightrope between economy vs number of people dying.

Scotland, in it’s delay in lifting restrictions, is of course going to have a lower R rate and lower deaths per capita. Whether is is worth the economic damage is an unknown at the moment and won’t be apparent until UK government support tapers off.

I’d argue that if the Scottish unemployment rate is more than a few percentage points higher than England’s by Spring next year then Scotland’s response should be deemed a failure. The misery caused by unemployment being greater than the lives saved. If unemployment rates stay the same then I’d admit that the Scottish response has been better.

Time will tell.

In reply to mattmurphy:

There is no tightrope or tradeoff between economy and number of people dying.   The best way to preserve the economy is to minimise the number of people who get Covid and the best way to do that is to react quickly and not stop until your infection rate is near zero.  China showed how it should be done.

If you let Covid go so most people get infected your economy is going to be f*cked 100 times worse than if you control it.   Many productive people will die.   Even more productive people will be long term ill and unable to do their job.   Health services will be totally overwhelmed and unable to treat other illnesses.  Health professionals will die and become ill at an even higher rate than the rest of the population.   People will be traumatised by the deaths of relatives or their own experiences in ICU.

Even worse it looks like the whole 'herd immunity' premise is wrong because people have caught it again.   They were just assuming that herd immunity would exist and that it wouldn't be like some viral disease which are actually worse the second time you catch them.

In reply to elsewhere:

See I told you that you had a good handle on the stats

I’m curious as to the effect of the starting points for the two countries though - if you look at the best performing region of England (South West) then it does better than Scotland despite the drawback of having BJ in overall charge. What factors lead to this, and to what degree is the success of Scotland vs England down to factors other than the political competence of its leaders?

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

I do partly see your point and the economic impact in Sweden partly supports your view, but it’s not as clear cut as you make it out to be.

I’m definitely not advocating for no lockdown or for Covid to have been left to it’s own devices.

I think that’s important to acknowledge two things  1) the virus is endemic now and eradication is nearly impossible (as the second lockdown in NZ is showing) and 2) shutting down sections of the economy e.g. bars does have an economic impact and will cause people to lose there jobs.

The key difference between the UK and Scottish governments in my mind was the risk appetite in opening up sections of the economy despite the risk in the r rate rising.

In England, pubs ect opened earlier and there hasn’t been a significant increase in the R rate (although the recent figures look worrying). These pubs and other businesses will have generated more cash than their Scottish counterparts and will be in a better position to survive future local lockdowns and/ or keep people employed.

It’s naive to think that draconian restrictions until we have a vaccine would be appropriate. Thankfully neither country has gone down that route (there’s no much of a difference in death rates or overall response).

Despite the poor communication by the UK government, I think the response has been more balanced with a focus on getting back to normal where possible.

In reply to Dr.S at work:

Maybe they don't ski, go to big football games and Cheltenham races, so the initial pool of covid infected people prior to lock down was small.

Or maybe work places and homes. Limited public transport, many folk drive to work and shop on their own. Or if you live, work and shop in the same town/village you meet less folk outside your towns bubble. 

In reply to Dr.S at work:

A tangible factor for Scotland might be "in house" track and trace rather than outsourcing. Compounded to the power of 30 over 4 months that alone being slightly better might be enough to explain the relative success now of Scotland, NI & Wales (although I don't follow the latter two much).

English regions - no idea, just guessing. SW is relatively rural, white, good life expectancy and low unemployment according to wiki. Maybe demographics, maybe something else.

What do you mean by best? Total deaths or daily deaths now. The former largely set by timing of lockdown compared to local spread and Scotland not much better than England. Latter determined by management of decline after lockdown and Scotland significantly better.

In reply to mick taylor:

I think in discussions like this it would be good if people made a 'decleration of interest'. Who do we support, who or what do we oppose. We all have our biases and it's very tempting to present an argument that fits the conviction. 

In reply to mick taylor:

That's probably in part a function of who was being infected in England vs Scotland which will be any mix of governance differences and luck. Given that's unlikely to account for all the difference it's also likely the Scots are finding a much higher therefore less sick fraction of the infected.

Jk

In reply to DaveHK:

One usually has to dig pretty deep to find ways to criticise people who have been running a minority administration for that long. It ends up really very easy to look stupid since that sort of political record only evolves through considerable skill and collaborative working.

Several Holyrood politicians have been far too keen to criticise and end up doing a very public face-plant. The strangest part of the whole thing is that, as in England, Tory voters don't seem to care if their politician end up looking really stupid. It's almost as though they warm to it. Meanwhile, faith in the LibDems and Labour gets progressively eroded. 

In reply to Jim Fraser:

I think that honeymoon is over

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/aug/29/boris-johnson-faces-tory-w...

In reply to Dr.S at work:

Well yes, she's talked a great game but also had the benefit of a fairly uncritical press compared to what the Tories are up against in London.

In fact her government should be under police investigation for culpable homicide since it emerged that people with C19 were sent back into care homes.

In fact if you compare Scotland with other parts of the UK with similar population densities such as SW England there isn't much difference.

What surprises me is that Scotland is always bring compared to England while Wales that has done a bit better than both, had not.

In reply to mattmurphy:

There is no choice involved there. People ARE the economy. 

What Tories do not get is that every time somebody dies, a piece of their precious economy has died.

In reply to Removed User:

Well the cross UK comparison is really what we need - given the starting conditions and regional population/geographic factors did any of the administrations within the UK have Sufficiently better (or better communicated/delivered) Policy to alter the progression of the epidemic?

In reply to Jim Fraser:

And when a piece of the economy dies, people die.

In reply to Removed User:

PSML

Every major newspaper in Scotland is unionist, the English press which is distributed in Scotland is unionist.  BBC Scotland takes its instructions straight from London and is overtly unionist.   

In reply to Jim Fraser:

Nonsense.

If that was the case why aren’t we still in a hard lockdown? Wouldn’t that save the economy according to you?

In reply to Dr.S at work:

With the starting point of most measures broadly the same, the PPE fiasco, and the breakdown in confidence caused by the behaviour of both Cummings and Johnson being common, all home nation outcomes are effectively tied tightly together and differences are not vast. 

In reply to Jim Fraser:

Probably true