The 11th January edition of BBC Scotland's flagship morning news programme, Good Morning Scotland, was so extreme in terms of anti-SNP propaganda that we decided to analyse key segments to highlight just how bad things were.

This thread deals with untruths.

On January 11th there were several untruths. The clip below is Good Morning Scotland presenter Laura Maxwell as she introduces an interview with Scottish Tory MSP Dean Lockhart.

https://t.co/hGhjbZ89Kl
Maxwell says: "The Deputy First Minister has rejected suggestions that the recovery from the coronavirus crisis should be a greater priority than an independence referendum."

But did John Swinney *really* reject such a suggestion?

https://t.co/BP2qMS5dtq
Swinney said: "An independence referendum is an essential priority for Scotland because it gives us the opportunity to choose how we decide to rebuild as a country from Covid."

Swinney's words have been contorted. The interpretation is closer to tabloid caricature than truth.
But there were more untruths and misleading statements to come.

In the interview that followed Laura Maxwell's caricature intro, Scottish Tory MSP Dean Lockhart provided two in a single sentence.

https://t.co/iDgpHZzaeq
Lockhart said the SNP promised the 2014 Indyref would be "once in a generation". He also implied that UK referendums could not be 7 years apart.

The 7 year claim is misleading. The Northern Ireland Act 1998 allows for an Irish border poll within seven years of a previous poll.
The "once in a generation pledge" claim is also false. The SNP never pledged the 2014 Indyref would be once in a generation. Alex Salmond did say it was his own view but crucially added that another Indyref only required the SNP to win another election.

https://t.co/3Op3ZJcbKs
BBC Scotland never, ever plays this clip of Alex Salmond. Why not?

The seven year claim for a referendum should have been picked up by Laura Maxwell, given the presenter comes from Northern Ireland and one assumes would have been familiar with the Irish border poll.

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Brief thread to debunk the repeated claims we hear about transmission not happening 'within school walls', infection in school children being 'a reflection of infection from the community', and 'primary school children less likely to get infected and contribute to transmission'.

I've heard a lot of scientists claim these three - including most recently the chief advisor to the CDC, where the claim that most transmission doesn't happen within the walls of schools. There is strong evidence to rebut this claim. Let's look at


Let's look at the trends of infection in different age groups in England first- as reported by the ONS. Being a random survey of infection in the community, this doesn't suffer from the biases of symptom-based testing, particularly important in children who are often asymptomatic

A few things to note:
1. The infection rates among primary & secondary school children closely follow school openings, closures & levels of attendance. E.g. We see a dip in infections following Oct half-term, followed by a rise after school reopening.


We see steep drops in both primary & secondary school groups after end of term (18th December), but these drops plateau out in primary school children, where attendance has been >20% after re-opening in January (by contrast with 2ndary schools where this is ~5%).

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