The SNP leader reacted furiously when the Sky News host quizzed her on the coronavirus death toll in Scotland. Ms Sturgeon stated that Scotland’s coronavirus death rate can not be judged over a four week period and called for data across the entire pandemic to be used when making a comparison with England.
Ms Burley said: “I am just looking at the latest figures on the Covid death rate in Scotland and it is 20 percent higher than in England, why is that?”
Scotland’s First Minister replied: “Actually, it is not, the BBC used some figures yesterday where they looked at some figures out of four weeks of a nine-month pandemic.
“There is no acceptable death rate, and I am not defending the number of people that have died in Scotland.
“But if people want to do comparisons it is not unreasonable to say they should look at the comparison across the whole pandemic where actually per 100,000 of the population the number of people in Scotland who have tragically lost their lives is lower than England and Wales.
“No country is out of this pandemic yet and it is really important that we continue to focus all of our efforts on suppressing the virus.
“That is what my Government is spending every ounce of our energy seeking to do.”
The Sky News host said: “I am just looking at week 46 which is the latest figures we have got, the ONS and national records of Scotland say 40.6 deaths per million in England and Scotland have 50.5 deaths per million.
“That is 20 percent higher in Scotland than it is in England.”
The SNP leader responded: “That is one week and I am not denying that but this has been a nine-month pandemic.”
More to follow…
