3 responses to “2 More #Covid Cases in Orkney: Wearing of Face Masks Will Continue to be Mandatory in Scotland”

1. 

   S Davidson

   July 13, 2021 at 3:26 pm

   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.

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   1. 

      Peter Breingan

      July 13, 2021 at 4:36 pm

      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?.

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2. 

   S Davidson

   July 14, 2021 at 1:01 pm

   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

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