Enforce the lockdown and test all NHS staff promptly

Send your letters to letters@independent.co.uk

The NHS is making a massive effort to increase resources to save lives. The UK government must help them fight the coronavirus outbreak by tightening social distancing and by rolling out the testing of all carers.

Together they will reduce demand for intensive care and give the NHS a chance. The message must be clear. Those ignoring the lockdown are not risking their own lives but the lives of the vulnerable that they infect.

Carers must be helped so that they do not unwittingly infect and kill those they are tending. Just telling people to stay at home is not enough, the infection must not be allowed into the homes of the vulnerable.

Jon Hawksley
Address supplied

I suspect the main reason we are urged not to overstrain the NHS is it will become glaringly obvious how much damage the Conservative party has done to it due to underfunding.

I would like to think that when this is over all our frontline support workers from NHS workers to shop assistants are treated with the respect they deserve and are given the wages they deserve to have a good life.

I also hope the government amends our universal credit to be something a person can live on.

Sadly I fear it will all be forgotten about once the crisis is over.

Ken Twiss
Yarm

Your local foodbank needs help

In regard to donating to food banks, readers might find it helpful to check out their local bank’s website as some have storage issues or require particular goods at certain times.

One can also donate money which may be helpful at this time of bare shelves.

These will be particularly testing times for them all.

Viv Robson
Petersfield

Hospices have been forgotten

Not one word yet about the severe financial crisis the coronavirus shutdown is causing to hospices.

The children’s hospice near me, Haven House, is in dire need of £500,000 to care for terminally ill children and their parents and carers, as all fundraising activity has had to cease and their shops shut.

It is about time this government was brought to book over the shoddy mean way they treat hospices.

Glynne Williams
Walthamstow

Understanding loneliness

Thank you to Lucie McInerney​​, I found this piece really honest and it certainly resonated with me a lot

For those of us living alone, we are more used to our own company and periods of quiet and silence. However, as Lucie points out we usually have the option of going out and meeting others when we need an injection of social fun.

Keep up the good work!

Nicky Morgan
Address supplied

Return to sender

A letter from the prime minister? No, thank you!

What a disgraceful waste of money and resources. Please, please concentrate on the essentials, the safety of all the NHS and care workers and listen to what they need.

Anyone recruited for this particular stunt could be deployed somewhere useful instead.

Helen Watson
Henley-on-Thames