As a Scottish concerned citizen in the post-2020 era with over twenty years’ experience in science and data analysis, I have been looking on with frequently raised eyebrows at the response to the alleged Covid–19 pandemic. Almost nothing made sense to me from a health standpoint. It was actually the inverse of public health. One example was that I knew from research conducted in the early 2000s that chronic fear is the most harmful state for immune system health—and yet we had relentless daily government briefings and mainstream media Covid–19 case and death counts terrorising people in their own homes.
My first true moment of pandemic awakening came in June 2020, when the Scottish Government mandated masks for public transport and then the following month for shops. Shortly before these mask mandates, Scotland reached zero ‘Covid’ deaths—so clearly, masks were not required to ‘defeat the virus’. You will also recall that in 2020, masks were said to be of no use against the virus; this advice came from several UK and Scottish Government 'experts'.
From this point of confusion, I decided to fact-check the Government and their advisors with the best quality scentific data and especially the real-world data, both past and present. I dusted off some old biology manuals stored in the attic. Was I missing something; was I wrong; how would I know?
I resorted to keeping analysis simple by basing conclusions on cold, hard facts difficult to argue against, and the best source for me was National Records of Scotland data and Freedom of Information Act requests.
No pandemic
The more I checked the data, the more I reached the same conclusion: there was no pandemic-level event taking place in Scotland. Hospitals were largely empty, and Scotland had been through higher periods of mortality many times in the recent past. (For example, National Records of Scotland data shows that in week 1 of the year 2000, 2,275 people died, as against ‘peak Covid’ in week 15 of 2020, when 1,978 died from all causes).
If I adjusted for population, the deaths in that first week of 2000 would equal 2,400 in today’s terms. So 20% more people died in week 1 of 2000 than at the time of peak deaths in 2020. No-one seemed to know or care. A pandemic? And how many of these excess deaths in 2020 were due to the lockdown itself, and not the virus? The once-in-a-century narrative of pandemic has now been seen to be an epidemic of media and political hysteria and pseudoscience which has undoubtedly killed people unnecessarily, young and old.
The most stunning revelation arrived recently, when I discovered through a response issued under the Freedom of Information Act that not a single doctor or nurse had died in Scotland ‘involving’ Covid–19 over three years of a pandemic. So those working on the front lines, treating the sickest patients spreading a deadly virus, were not dying!
To put things in perspective, National Records of Scotland data also shows that over the same period, 4,345 healthcare workers died from all causes.
About 150,000 people work for NHS Scotland, the largest employer in Scotland.
The fact that no doctors or nurses died ‘involving’ Covid–19 in three years was of course very positive news—but equally, it was troubling to me, as I recalled several of the Scottish mainstream daily news titles, The Scottish Sun, The Daily Record and The Scotsman, all reporting several deaths from Covid occuring among nurses in Scotland.
Is this pandemic so deadly that the press has to lie about people dying? What about the other deaths in healthcare—over 4,000 of them—from non-Covid causes? These are not important to know about, as far as our politicians and media are concerned.
No interest
I contacted all of the abovementioned titles for comment in relation to the Freedom of Information Act response—and only one newspaper replied, with the following:
Just a brief note to thank you for getting in touch. I’d missed your initial email—apologies—but have now passed it on to our newly-appointed health correspondent, Joseph Anderson, who I’m sure will find it of interest.
Best wishes,
Neil McIntosh
Editor, The Scotsman
18 November 2022
Subsequent follow up e-mails to all outlets have been ignored.
Now, you would think the Scottish press—who claim to hold government to account—would be extremely enthused to bring this very positive news to the attention of the Scottish people; but no, no interest. We actually see the fear narrative persist into 2023 with a call for a return to masking (now a completely disproven mitigation, with real harms acknowledged) being fully supported by the Scottish press.
Why is this happening? That is surely the great question of the moment; but the intentions behind it cannot now be benign, from any scientific, factual or rational perspective.
I do not comply with lies. I will not live in fear.
