I’ll miss Radio Sport

Finally our Government has accepted that more testing is required. However, the newsreader ended the announcement of that with the health minister being quoted as saying only those showing symptoms will be tested.

Where has this nonsense come from? People who have the virus but no symptoms cannot spread the virus but park benches and playground equipment can. Why is there not a focus on people with the virus and all their contacts? Why isn’t every contact traced and tested? Why is the Government’s focus on everyone else?

I am someone who should have been traced and tested. This example shows what is wrong with the current strategy. One of my staff was working in a customer’s building two weeks ago where a person later found to have Covid-19 was present. The staff of that company were sent home the next day, before the lockdown, for two weeks’ isolation. Noone contacted my company, even though the visitor register would have identified my employee.

I have since worked alongside that employee. By the time we discovered this, it was too late to act. My company is still doing work for essential-service businesses. That is, we are still moving about when called to do

Albert Einstein said there are only two things which are infinite: the universe, and man’s capacity for stupidity. The recent incidents of spitting and coughing at police and others prove his point.

Those idiots need to be made aware that deliberately infecting someone with a disease is an offence under the Crimes Act. They should also be aware that should any person infected in this manner die from that infection, that fits precisely the definition of murder.

Derek Quilliam, retired barrister, Clive [abridged]

While I don’t agree with Tony Smith’s suggestion that Radio Sport should be publicly funded (Radio deserves a sporting chance, April 1), I heartily agree with everything else he wrote.

I am one of the many sports fans who will miss this station badly. It was a welcome bolt hole from the sanctimony of RNZ and the crassness of talkback radio.

Radio Sport was actually more than just sport, and some of its presenters were among the best broadcasters in this country. Martin Devlin once said: ‘‘The imperfections of life are mirrored in sport’’. Now, while we are experiencing an ‘‘imperfection’’, that mix of humour and profundity built around sport is sorely needed.

Mary Ward, Waikanae

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Cowed into submission?

The evidence from ministers and the Government’s advisers to Parliament’s Epidemic Response Committee yesterday suggests that, whatever else is happening, the Government’s spin machine is turning quickly.

The scientific experts are now telling us that a four-week lockdown may not be enough. No denial from ministers suggesting that they already had that in mind.

Also, we are being prepared for more measures to restrict movement. The police commissioner says we have to stay at home; the PM says going out for walks is OK. The rules are unclear and they are not being clarified.

Perhaps that suits the police and Government. A docile and cowed population will be easier to control: ask any dictator. John Bishop, Karori

Too slow to act

Geoff Houtman is spot on (Letters, March 31). I believe that this Government has failed on two points. First, by not closing the border soon enough and, second, by not imposing total quarantine on all arrivals once the border was closed.

As a nation surrounded by water, had the Government acted more decisively, I’m sure the numbers of people infected with the virus would be considerably less and the country could have headed to our normal daily routines earlier.

It is definitely not fair on the rest of us because the Government failed to act sooner on proper border controls and quarantine measures.

Robert Wickham, Lyall Bay

Newspaper a godsend

A big thank-you for keeping The Dominion Post printed and delivered. It has been a godsend to this small bubble that includes a partner who thinks ‘‘on line’’ is a new rugby term and an eightweek-old puppy who doesn’t read, but likes sitting on it.

Used copies are now being used for the kitchen tidy, mulch for the new vegetable garden and are piling up in preparation for the open fire. And whilst we haven’t moved it to the bathroom yet, who knows in these troubled times? (No disrespect to its editorial content, but if needs must . . .)

Long live the daily newspaper. Some things will never be replaced by an electronic device.

Janet Weir, Melrose

Bring back recycling

Wellington City Council is making a serious mistake by stopping the collection of recycling during the lockdown.

It is well known that a substantial minority of Wellingtonians put unclean household rubbish into green recycling bags instead of using the yellow WCC rubbish bags. They do this to avoid the cost of buying the official bags.

People will now have to accumulate this unclean recycling that is not being collected. This is a health risk and it will attract vermin.

The other reason that recycling collection should continue is that the system will not cope with the accumulated backlog when the lockdown is lifted.

WCC should consider recycling an essential service for public health and safety.

Peter D Graham, Island Bay

Send out swab kits

It is common practice for faecal sampling kits to be given to patients and used at home in order to test for occult blood.

Similarly, urine samples are collected at home and then delivered to a pathology laboratory. How difficult would it be for nasal and throat swabs, together with an enclosing tube, instructions and provision for labelling (name, address, sex, age), to be sent to all households (or collected from pharmacies), then posted in a pre-paid, pre-addressed bag to a series of laboratory centres?

Analysis of swabs represents a bottleneck at present, but they could be frozen until an opportunity arose. I foresee this as a way of establishing a greater degree of epidemiological insight into this current pandemic.

The results would naturally not be forthcoming with any rapidity, but given that many people catching Covid-19 have mild symptoms and are either not aware of their condition, or not tested because they largely at non-risk, then eventually a body of data would result that, in retrospect, after the pandemic has disappeared, may help future understanding of the progress of similar diseases.

Allen Heath, Woburn