The cumulative total of positive Covid cases in Orkney now stands at 130 as 2 more cases were published today.
The stats for Scotland on 13th of July 2021 were as follows:
- 2,529 new cases of COVID-19 reported
- 23,804 new tests for COVID-19 that reported results
- 11.5% of these were positive
- 4 new reported death(s) of people who have tested positive
- 41 people were in intensive care yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19
- 506 people were in hospital yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19
- 3,941,571 people have received the first dose of the Covid vaccination and 2,903,557 have received their second dose
Scotland will continue to exercise caution as the nation moves to Level 0 from Monday 19th of July but the continued mandatory requirement will be to wear Face Masks/Coverings. See more here: Coronavirus in Scotland
People must remember to:
- wear a face covering
- avoid crowded places
- clean hands and surfaces regularly
- stay 2m away from other people
- self-isolate and get tested if you have COVID-19 symptoms
- download the Protect Scotland app
Categories: Uncategorized
Unfortunately, the numbers which come from the Orkney Health Board are quite meaningless. We do not receive any cluster information, we do not receive any information which tests of the weekly number published relate to routine healthcare staff testing and which ones to members of the public, we do not receive local stats such as age which would support conclusions about disease dynamics due to differences in levels of vaccinations for different age groups and so forth.
Patient confidentiality is not a credible argument because other island healthboards provide far more detailed information, i.e. Western Isles, such as:
https://www.coronavirus.wi.nhs.scot/?page_id=1884 and https://www.coronavirus.wi.nhs.scot/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/03.07.21-09.07.21-Update.png
The circumstances in the Western Isles are identical with Orkney, population size and densities etc.
Hence it can’t be that confidentiality is the issue here. Rather incompetence, I suspect. This would point towards the data not being collected in the same way as in the Western Isles, or – if collected – not be prepared in a way which ends up properly in stats one can work with.
I entirely agree
It is as if NHSO/Health Board do not want us to see how they are doing re contact and trace.
There is no breaking of any confidentiality that I can see in the Western Isles publication.
Can we have an answer from officialdom?.
In case the ‘officials’ do not read the Orkney News… the underneath letter has been sent today to NHS Orkney via the ‘contact us’ link on their website:
Dear Sir/Madam
It is about time that NHS Orkney finally starts to publish meaningful information. For example do we need regional information, for the simple reason that people might be more cautious when interacting if known cases are on their island etc.
Too much information is kept hidden from us under the excuse of protecting patient confidentiality.
I would assume that the Western Isles Healthboard does not breach such confidentiality by informing the resident population of cases, locations of cases, age structure and also which proportion of tests refer to members of the public resp. regularly tested health care staff and so forth.
The weekly update of just a number of total tests and positive cases is absolutely meaningless without any background information. Other healthboards do better.
See the breakdown section of the Western Isles Healthboard:
https://www.coronavirus.wi.nhs.scot/?page_id=1884
And an example of the weekly informatione here: https://www.coronavirus.wi.nhs.scot/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/03.07.21-09.07.21-Update.png
This is the least we can expect in Orkney. To this day I am not sure whether you deliberately withhold such information from the Orkney public or whether you simply are not aware of the necessity of collecting such data.
Both is not acceptable and I urge you to establish meaningful reporting immediately to avoid that other avenues (i.e. legal) need to be considered to achieve the regular release of information required in times of a public health crisis.
Kind regards
S. Davidson