However, it gets worse, a lot worse.
Scotland is a small country which has to exist economically by having strong exports (and we have always *had* strong exports).
Here are the figures for some of Scotland's strongest food export sectors:
fish & shellfish down 83%
meat down 59%
dairy down 50%
EU exports in general down 63%
@fitheach Does the relative success of the vaccination programme in the UK in comparison with the EU affect people's perception of the EU?
@mpjgregoire
I shouldn't think so. Views about the EU are very entrenched, on both sides.
Is the vaccination programme relatively successful in the UK, compared to the EU? I don't know.
@fitheach @mpjgregoire Afaik, its slightly better than in France.
But it would be very hard to do worse, so not sure how much this means.
@Meandres @fitheach The UK has managed to vaccinate almost 40% of its population, the EU about 10%. See https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations
(The US is almost as good as the UK, Canada is worse than the EU.)
I'm surprised this is not well known; this is arguably the most important chart in the world at the moment.
@mpjgregoire
I'm not aware that this is a particular talking point in the UK (or the press), although I might not have my finger on the pulse, currently.
@mpjgregoire
By any measure 125k dead (in the UK) is a terrible statistic.
@fitheach @Meandres Terrible indeed. Looking at #OurWorldInData, cumulative per capita deaths, it may yet be that more countries catch up with that sad result.
@fitheach @Meandres Interesting. Maybe the #Tory press talks about it?
It's also true that the UK has had a bad pandemic overall, with high per capita fatalities in comparison with your neighbours; vaunting the vaccination rate would be short-sighted and churlish.
Still there's reason to hope the pandemic will effectively come to an end in the UK in a few months.
#ukpol #covid19