Scottish FoI Update: Covid–19 front-line deaths by occupation

This article is an important update to my prior Freedom of Information Act articles published by UK Column from January 2023 until now, all of which can be found here. A response to readers' remarks on the below article was published in November 2023.

NRS admits errors 

Around six months after I submitted my original batch of Freedom of Information requests to Scottish public bodies, and after the articles had received hundreds of thousands of views thanks to Dr Paul Alexander in the United States (former pandemic advisor to President Trump), I was contacted unexpectedly on 26 June 2023 by National Records of Scotland (NRS) with the following message, which relates specifically to that article of mine which Dr Alexander popularised:

Over a period of two years gathering data, I found this explanation somewhat odd. How could Scotland’s primary source of statistics manage to make such a significant error in death recording?

I contacted them with the following query:

Could you explain in more detail about these errors. What went wrong and how this was discovered?

To which I received the response below:

Again, I was less than convinced by this explanation, but nonetheless, I was pleased that NRS was willing to engage and to offer further explanations. I queried some more.

As you can see, the mistakes were discovered in the Freedom of Information requests due to a query from ‘’a member of the public’’, which prompted NRS to re-check. From my experience, this is unusual, as I find there is a distinct lack of interest in this information from members of the public, and also from my local parliamentarians (MSPs). Follow-up questions were left unanswered, and National Records of Scotland ended the communication as follows:

So what does the new data demonstrate?

Prior released data by NRS showed there were no deaths ‘involving’ Covid–19 in the following categories:

• doctors,
• nurses,
• shop workers,
• police,
• and primary and secondary school teachers—

from 2020 to 2022. Yet from the update I received in July 2023, there have been an additional 131 ‘Covid’ deaths added across all the aforementioned occupations from 2020 to 2022:

• Teachers (SOC2010 codes 2314, 2315, 2319): 17 deaths 
• Shop Workers (SOC2010 codes 7111, 7112): 67 deaths 
• Police officers (SOC2010 code 3312): 7 deaths
• Doctors (SOC2210 code code 2211): 5 deaths
• Nurses (SOC 2010 code 2231): 35 deaths

Does this change prior conclusions of no pandemia on the front lines? No. For example, the NHS in Scotland employs around 160,000 staff, including 64,000 nurses. 

The latest figures also show that during the peak of the ‘pandemic’ in 2020, remarkably, there were still zero doctors, pharmacists or midwives who died from causes ‘involving’ the virus, which is the broadest definition for recording a Covid death. And of those who would have been in regular close contact with ‘Covid’ patients, only two paramedics died over the three-year period.

During the last thee years, the total number of NHS Scotland staff ‘on the front lines’ who sadly died from causes ‘involving the virus’ was thankfully extremely small, at 57, or 0.036% of the entire workforce. This means that 99.96% of the workforce has survived 'Covid–19' in the past three years. It would have been reassuring to have such figures disseminated by the Scottish Government and public health officials during ‘the pandemic’. However, it seems to me that they were deliberately kept out of the spotlight. The mainstream media were equally uninterested.

It should be noted that in comparison to these Covid statistics (over three years) from 2020 until the end of 2021 (over a two-year period), there were 56 deaths from suicide in Scotland in those under under 20 years of age.

The numbers on the above Freedom of Information submission were extracted from the link provided in the response.

‘Covid’ deaths in nurses, 2020–2023

The total number deaths involving ‘Covid–19’ in Scottish nurses over a three-year period came to a total of 35. We can clearly see that those in the profession were at far greater risk from non-Covid causes of death, which made up 87.5% (245) of all deaths among nurses since ‘the pandemic’ was declared.

Noteworthy here is that there were more ‘Covid’ and ‘non-Covid’ deaths the following year after the mass ‘vaccination’ campaign began for nurses, doctors and care home staff. 

The following data has been manually extracted from NRS.

2023 care home workers update

Although NRS has not contacted me regarding the Freedom of Information request from late November 2022 with regard to ‘Covid’ deaths in care home workers, there were only five deaths ‘involving’ the virus from 2020 to 2022. Therefore, I am of the view that prior reasons given in relation to ‘coding errors’ would not be valid here, since ‘Covid’ deaths were returned in this category (of care home workers) for both 2020 and 2021, unlike with the other occupations mentioned, where there were no deaths at all mentioned in the returns provided to me.

However, the new July 2023 update now shows that the care home workers category has a total of 92 deaths—representing an under-reporting factor of nearly 20 times in the prior response. The reason for this, I presume, will be more human error, either in coding or something else, as yet undetermined.

One in five doctors in the UK now disabled due to ‘long Covid’

As of 31 August 2023, a new survey shows that 20% of British doctors are now unable to work due to ‘long Covid’—and yet we see in my part of Britain, Scotland, that no doctor actually died involving the virus in 2020. 

However, the British Medical Association's occupational medicine committee co-chair, Raymond Agius, wants mask-wearing to return to hospitals despite the low risk to staff of Covid, not to mention the overwhelming evidence that they provide no benefits to the user and can often cause more harm than good.

Aguis said in a BMA press release:

During the COVID–19 pandemic, doctors were left exposed and unprotected at work. They often did not have access to the right PPE [. . .] Too many risk assessments of workplaces and especially of vulnerable doctors were not undertaken.

Has the BMA considered that chronic long term face-masking could have contributed to causing many cases of ‘long Covid’, especially in vulnerable doctors? An article published in Scientific Reports in July 2022 cautioned the following:

We propose that immunocompromised people should avoid repeated use of masks to prevent microbial infection.

Furthermore, have masks been risk-assessed for healthcare workers, given the physical, mental and emotional demands of their job? Have the experimental Covid–19 mRNA/DNA injections been taken into consideration in ‘long Covid’ diagnosis? 

COVID–19 mRNA and adenovector DNA vaccine injuries overlap with severe acute COVID–19 illness and long COVID.

Front-line conclusions in 2023

The latest update to the original data clearly shows that the vast majority of staff employed by the National Health Service in Scotland and of the Scottish teaching profession were never at serious risk from ‘the Covid virus’, and that deaths and disabilities in most front-line occupations increased after the rollout of the Covid–19 mass ‘vaccination’ campaign. For instance, a September 2023 study shows that 35% of 1,704 enrolled healthcare workers had to call in sick after Covid 'vaccination' and sick leave significantly increased with each subsequent booster.

With regard to the data collected by National Records of Scotland, I cannot say that I have been satisfied with the reasons given for the recent changes. In addition, I am especially curious about the new ‘Covid’ death numbers for care home workers, which I plan to follow up for UK Column in due course.

Main image: New Register House in Edinburgh (headquarters of National Records of Scotland); John Lord | licence CC BY 2.0