Two weeks in a hotel is a very small price to pay

I DO understand that those coming back from overseas may be under a lot of pressure, having just lost their jobs, or having had to uproot families and lives to return here.

However, I still think we need to ask them to isolate themselves from the community and from their fellow returnees for two weeks.

My father was stuck in the desert in North Africa for four years during World War 2 and his life varied between being bored out of his mind in a slit trench dug out of the sand, covered with flies, with poor food and being bombed by German planes, in fear of his life and those of his friends around him. Then it was on to Monte Cassino and Italy for another year and another kind of hell. I know because I have read his war diaries and letters home.

I don’t think it’s much to ask for people to stay in their hotel room for two weeks, all expenses paid with meals and TV and internet provided, for the sake of their fellow Kiwis.

Let’s provide them with what they feel they must escape to get and ensure that they stay there. It doesn’t seem too harsh to me and it may be characterbuilding.

Ann Mackay

Oamaru

CORY McVicar needs to look up the meaning of the word ‘‘intent’’ (ODT, 11.7.20).

She even admits to trying to talk Martin McVicar out of doing what he did. He deliberately cut the ties on the fence to escape — there is the intent immediately.

He then compounded the intent by carrying on and going out to buy alcohol, thereby putting other people at risk. He gambled on not getting caught, he lost and now he has to pay the price for his actions.

Andrew Maton

Opoho