We need government reassurance far beyond the easing of the lockdown

Please send your letters to letters@independent.co.uk

The current health crisis means that the NHS must try and prevent the spread of the Covid-19 virus to protect the NHS from being overwhelmed and to save lives, but what about the risk of dying from cancer?

Some patients haven’t been told when their appointments will resume other than there is a backlog in hospitals. The situation is an unfortunate consequence of the pandemic and I have nothing but admiration for our NHS frontline heroes trying to save lives.

No one really knows how this new disease will behave this summer, particularly, as lockdown restrictions are being eased. The coronavirus is going to be around for a very long time until a vaccine is made widely available.

The death rate is likely to soar again during the flu season and it is possible that NHS hospitals will again be overwhelmed by Covid-19 patients. Will cancer patients again be put on hold?

The government needs to reassure the public with a precise plan how the NHS will cope this winter if a vaccine is not readily available.

Jeannette Schael​
Hampshire

Wrong equations

Simon Calder’s opinion that the quarantine of travellers is not necessary because incoming travellers will have a lower incident of infection than the UK population does not stack up. R is not a property of a virus, it is a property of the community of people that have social contact. It is greater in communities that are on buses, tubes, trains and aircraft. The less people travel the lower R will be. The less cross-infection between communities the easier it is to eradicate it. The collateral damage in aviation is a small price to pay in eliminating Covid-19. The productive assets, the planes and trained people are still there so it is only a matter of re-organising their usage.

At least R is starting to be understood – hopefully there will be no more statements that new cases are a record when it simply means R continues to exceed 1. Hopefully you will soon stop saying the UK is past the peak as though a peak is an event in itself when it simply means R has been below 1 and may not stay below it.

What is needed now is an understanding of M, the mortality rate, and how little the government is doing to lower it by reducing the percentage of vulnerable people in new infections. M can be lowered more easily than R because the vulnerable can be identified but it needs the government to appoint someone to be held responsible for it, not just say they regret it.

Jon Hawksley​
France

Care homes disaster

Whistleblowers across Scotland claim patients were shipped out of our hospitals into care homes after testing positive for Covid-19 without their condition being disclosed.

These patients allegedly triggered outbreaks, killing other vulnerable residents as well as unprotected staff. This was a despicable betrayal of our care home sector by Scotland’s NHS.

It’s beyond ironic that as we recall VE Day, our self-serving politicians and cowardly administrators created a health service scandal that would be unimaginable in Germany.

The fact that the first minister uses our poorer statistics, for which she is at least in part responsible, to continue a politically motivated “total lockdown” is beneath contempt.

John Cameron
St Andrews

Common sense out the window

It’s impossible to reconcile common sense and some of the new rules on social distancing.

If I go out and meet a brother it’s OK as long as we stay at least two metres apart. But if I go out and see my brother and his wife I can’t go anywhere near them – even if we’re all at least two metres apart. But I can be close to any number of strangers as long as there are two metres between any two of us.

For example, if I stand in a park, 12 people can form a circle around me, with a radius of four metres and a circumference of 25 metres, each two metres from the nearest other person, with me at the centre, four metres from each of them. Within that we can form another circle of radius two metres and circumference 12.5 metres, around which another six people can stand, still at least two metres apart from any else. Nineteen people, all more than two metres apart. But only one of them can be my relation or friend.

Why?

Michael Clarke
North Somerset

Don’t leave it up to us

The nation is being urged to apply common sense by a man who not so long ago bragged about shaking hands with coronavirus patients.

The most vulnerable children will soon be back in school and workers will either rush back into work or be coerced into doing so. The herd mentality is already taking over; the roads are twice as busy as last week, public transport heaving.

So when we’re bringing out our dead in the weeks to come, our caring government will be able to say it’s down to us for not using common sense. Bravo.

Paul Halas​
Stroud

Leave it up to us

Lockdown has to stop and it has to stop completely very soon. Jonathan Sumption yesterday voiced the opinion I have held for several weeks now. The education, careers and opportunities of the young should not be sacrificed simply to protect the aged and infirm. All shops, restaurants, pubs and business should open their doors from 1 June. This is not right-wing, left-wing or any wing, it is common sense. The rest should be up to the public.

​There has been sufficient time since the outbreak for our health experts to assess who exactly is at risk, how and why, and to let the public know, in detail, what the findings are so that individuals can then make their own life decisions.

We have been driven into a blue funk by a virus that is nasty, but not the B movie horror show it’s been painted. Yes, many have died before their natural time, but that sadly happens to many thousands each year without this ballyhoo. And spare me the handwringing about people dying in care homes. Old people go into homes to be looked after until death takes them, there is only one way out. It happens to us all in the end.

Get the country back to work, encourage people who have symptoms to take time off by paying them £300 per week for three weeks as a one-off, no questions asked, benefit, put hand sanitisers everywhere and leave the rest to us.

Bob Fennell​
Bromley