Responding to Scotland having passed 10,000 deaths from covid-19, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said:
“When I think of 10,000 deaths, I think of 10,000 broken families and friends. I think of the pain and the loss.
“For their sake we must learn the lessons of what went right and what went wrong.
“With one of the highest numbers of people dead in Europe, Scotland has a special responsibility to conduct an early public inquiry. That inquiry must look at the lack of testing for new care home residents, the lack of preparation in the summer for the second wave in the autumn and the lack of asymptomatic testing to hunt down and drive out the virus.”
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6 Comments
Though it is no consolation to those who have lost loved ones, there are at least 10 counties in Europe with a higher death rate from covid than Scotland and Scotland’s death rate is also lower than that of England though we share the same island. Of course, a proper analysis of the real death rate from the effects of covid will have to look into the rate of excess deaths in the country, whether directly related to covid or an indirect consequence of the wider effects of the covid pandemic.
Indirect consequences is an important question that should be asked and made clearly transparent.
The UK death rate is not the worst in Europe. In June 2020, it was, according to figures from the ONS, but by December it had been overtaken by Poland, Spain, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Slovenia.
UK Government figures (ONS) now show excess death rates are 122.4 deaths per 100,000 people in Scotland, 134.6 in England and 156.8 in Wales.
As to a Public Enquiry, Willie is a bit late. On 23 March, Ms Sturgeon met with Covid families and pledged a Public Enquiry, with full family involvement before the end of this year.
“Sturgeon pledge on Covid public inquiry, https://www.theguardian.com › world › mar › sturgeon… 23 Mar 2021 — Families who have lost loved ones to Covid-19 have welcomed a pledge from Nicola Sturgeon to involve them in a public inquiry.
I find it difficult to take Willie Rennie seriously..I don’t believe that LibDems are ‘Stronger, as a party, after time in coalition with the Tories”, neither do I believe that ‘Harry Potter and stuffed parrots’ help promote the image of a serious party’,,
On Scotland, I hope Willie makes a protest about the actions of the High Heidyins at the BBC this evening.
BBC Scotland was due to screen live football this evening at 7.45 pm. (a promotion clincher between Hearts & Alloa Athletic). This has now been cancelled and instead we all have to watch exactly the same tribute programme about an (admittedly sad) event on absolutely every BBC Channel. Surely one channel is enough ?
Not a good move by the establishment for Covid lockdowners especially in Edinburgh and Clackmannanshire, but also for the Unionist vote throughout Scotland. I gather Master Chef is also off.
There should be an early public inquiry but it needs to be open to all the scientific evidence including the propositon that lockdown measures had limited impact and may have been counterproductive. I fear that the parameters will be set by those who blindly believe in lockdown effectiveness and “the science” ( Devi Shridhar, Neil Ferguson, John Edmonds and their ilk) which can not be questioned. I wish I could believe that it was all for the greater good but almost everything has been taken on trust and assumed to be true without any critical analysis. We have a very unhealthy political culture nowadays.