The figures I was using was the past week’s, in discussion with another poster about any genuine critique of the First Minister compared to the slating the Prime Minister has received this week.
Yet, even using your figures, there’s no discernible difference in deaths, which is such a surprise as one has done a wonderful job whilst the other has been woeful. Suffice to say managing a population half the size of London, with the double advantage of space, and with stricter lockdowns has led to similar disasters. Therefore I believe it’s right to conclude that the First Minister has not made a better fist of it.
It’s quite straight forward that you certainly haven’t let facts get in the way.
Presumably you agree that your "..a death rate twice the size of England’s" was an exaggeration - which was the point I was making.
I didn't make any claim about how effective the First Minister's policies had been overall, because, as you say, there is not an awful lot to choose between the statistics for the four home nations. I also kept my thoughts about the Prime Minister's policies to myself. The First Minister however, does come across to me as being more caring than the Prime Minister and faces questions every weekday. To me she is also more consistent in approach, at least within the bounds of having to respond to a dynamic situation, and explains the rationale behind her actions more clearly. I think she is better supported by, in particular, the Clinical Director who has a very straightforward manner (and seems to have been given rather more licence to speak for himself than has previously seemed the case for the UK advisors).
I also think that your caricature of Scotland population distribution in relation to England as being a huge advantage is somewhat flawed.
In 2018 a paper was produced by the Scottish Government giving key facts about Rural Scotland
(
https://www.gov.scot/publications/rural-scotland-key-facts-2018/pages/2/ )
This divides Scotland into three areas -
Remote Rural - this makes up 70% of the land mass and is populated by just 6% of the population;
Accessible Rural - this makes up 28% of the land mass and is populated by 11% of the population, and,
The Rest of Scotland (Cities, Urban areas and small towns) make up only 2% of the land mass but are home to 83% of the population.
So average population density is of very little relevance.
I was brought up in Reddish went to university in Leeds and have lived in Scotland for 27 years and from my own experience the demographics of the Central Belt are not much different from the M62 corridor. Overall poverty levels are high in Scotland with Glasgow being considered in some studies as the most deprived City in the UK. That in turn leads to underlying health issues which might be thought to increase the mortality of Covid-19 victims.
Add to this the problem of supplying health services to the Remote Rural Areas and I hope you will see that your inference that Scotland should be doing much better than England is not very soundly based on the evidence.
