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After the last global crisis, it was business as usual – we’re doomed if we do the same with coronavirus

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Wednesday 08 April 2020 18:30 BST
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Coronavirus 100 days on: What do we know

The single most important result of Covid-19 must be in the lessons we learn.

We have failed to learn so many important recent lessons. The most obvious being the business as usual which slunk back soon after the 2008 global financial crash caused by banking greed and the blatant failure of fiscal regulation.

I listened to someone weeping for Boris Johnson on the radio yesterday. After I finished wondering if that man wept for the Windrush suicides or the Grenfell dead – victims of a right-wing culture that views health and safety as a blight on an Englishman’s freedoms – I started thinking about something more current...

Once this is over, will the Tory party that has starved the NHS of resources for a decade, replace clapping with proper funding?

Will there be a properly resourced strategy in place for the next pandemic – because – after previous near-misses and the near break out from Africa of Ebola, the fact that the first country on the planet to have universal healthcare didn’t have a proper nationwide plan is a truly horrible farce.

As we suffocate intellectually under the grey, nylon fleece of sentimentality (which is also wonderful for selective amnesia) – will we just dry our tears and stumble blindly over ourselves to business as usual?

Amanda Baker
Edinburgh

Caretaker prime minister anyone?

Looking at the mini-crisis in our government (without swift action it could easily turn into a full-blown one), is there any chance that it is not too late to ask Ken Clarke to come back; or maybe even John Major?

Robert Boston
Kingshill, Kent

Home deliveries for those at risk

I see from my emails that people who the government say are at risk are being given slots for home delivery. Does that mean everyone else has to wait weeks for one?

I am 72, had a serious heart attack in May 2019, a second minor heart attack in October, have breathing difficulties and can only get around on crutches. I have two friends who have been shopping for me; one is now self-isolating.

I have not had a letter to say I am at risk. Once again, when the government should be acting with the utmost urgency and despite previous warnings, it dithers and offers excuses as to why it cannot deliver. It has failed hospitals on funding and the equipment they require, medical staff and carers on protective equipment they require. What happens when there are not enough people to look after all the sick people, young and old who require care?

John Rodgerson
Address supplied

Amazon’s non-essential items

In these difficult times (to say the least) when all but essential businesses are told to close, why is Amazon still sending out all manner of non-essential items?

Amazon already has an advantage over high-street businesses with regard to business rates, never mind their contrived low tax payments. And yet their warehouses are clearly operating. While it may be that some of the goods being dispatched are important/essential, I imagine that an awful lot would not fall into this category.

Reports allege that its staff (both in warehouses and their drivers) are being put at risk for no good reason other than they can get away with it. Surely this should be stopped?

Dennis Baum​
Address supplied

Should schools be out?

As a teacher, I welcome The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health Journal report, which found that closing schools has limited impact on the spread of coronavirus compared to case isolation.

But I can’t see how schools can get back unless there is testing of both students and teachers, as well as isolation of individual cases and those they have been in contact with.

Educational institutions will struggle to provide the invaluable interactive experience with both other students and teachers while they are closed. The internet is no substitute.

Kartar Uppal
Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham

Boris Johnson’s letter

Our house has just received Boris Johnson’s letter on the Covid-19 pandemic.

A single sheet of A4, it is a totally inadequate response to the toilet paper shortage.

Sasha Simic
London N16

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