A NEW poll has revealed that nearly half of UK citizens believe the Scottish Government has handled the coronavirus pandemic better than Westminster as England is found to have the world Covid-19 mortality rate in the world.
Scotland went into lockdown at the same time as the UK on March 23 but First Minister Nicola Sturgeon tightened the rules as Boris Johnson eased restrictions earlier this month.
Now a YouGov poll, released yesterday, revealed most people in Britain think Sturgeon made the right decision as Financial Times research found there has been more than 60,000 deaths linked to Covid-19 in the UK.
The survey of 2883 adults asked the question: “Which country do you think has handled the coronavirus outbreak better between England and Scotland?”
Most UK citizens – 44% – believe Nicola Sturgeon’s government in Scotland had handed the crisis well.
Just 14% said Westminster had handled the outbreak better than Holyrood. A quarter (25%) believe both nations had approached the pandemic in a similar way, while 17% said they were unsure.
Of the respondents in favour of Scotland, 68% were based in the country, while 48% were based in London. Just 13% of those surveyed in London supported Johnson’s approach, while just 7% of Scots supported the Tories’ strategy.
It comes on the same day Financial Times data visualisation journalist John Burn-Murdoch found England has the worst coronavirus mortality rate in the world without the devolved nations considered.
He told Sky News yesterday that data from March to May shows England’s coronavirus death rate has been the worst of any country that data is available for.
READ MORE: Covid-19: England alone 'has the world's highest mortality rate'
Since the UK became the European country with the worst death toll weeks ago, ministers have stopped showing the UK’s outbreak compared to other countries during the daily briefings – arguing it’s too soon to make these sorts of comparisons.
Burn-Murdoch said: “It really depends on where we draw the borders. If we’re looking at the UK as a whole, the UK is now very slightly behind Spain for the worst mortality rate of all countries that we have this data for. If we were to change that and look at England alone, England is now actually the highest in the world. This is over the whole period for which any country has been seeing a Covid outbreak. So for the UK and for England we’re talking about the last eight weeks of data, which goes back to the period in early to mid-March and takes us right the way through to the latest data we have which comes to May 15.”
The presenter then quizzed the journalist on whether ministers are correct in saying it’s too soon to compare these kinds of numbers.
He replied: “I’d say we’ve got enough data now that what is clear is that the UK is certainly among the very worst affected countries in the world and again England especially so.”
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