Pre-flight testing worthless

I’m concerned our policy-makers have adopted the push for pre-flight testing as a valid tool at the border – when it is not.

Both pre-departure isolation and testing are worthlesswhen the travellers are yet to be exposed to their highest risk – airports.

Want to plan a high-risk environment for respiratory infections? Try prolonged serpentine queuing. Transportation literature abounds with details of how modern airplane cabin ventilation lessens respiratory transmission, but the fact remains that large numbers of travellers develop infection during the entire process of air travel.

Epidemiologists are well aware of this, as well as the fact that masks become less useful as the hours ofwear are extended.

Our history of dealing with fraudulent professional, student and marital documentation has to be viewed in the light of reports of forged Covid-19 reports in UK, US and France in the last three months. Personally, Iwouldn’t trust any report from an under-pressure UK lab, far less a test result arriving in time. The entire UK health system is overwhelmed.

Best plan – test on arrival and day 3 and subsequently, with strict quarantine for everyone. Treat everyone as infectious until they’re clearly not. Don’t make things more complicated than they are. (Dr) Alistair Maxwell, Waikanae

Anthem ideas

Dave Armstrong (Jan 5) rejects God defend New Zealand as ‘‘tedious’’. Not really, only when played too slowly. He suggests we need an entirely new national song – the music as well as the obsolete words. No way!

I estimate it would take 10 years of public wrangling, and end with a compromise no-one likes. Change the words but not the tune, which is thoroughly established and instantly recognised by all.

Steve Farrow (Letters, Jan 5) gets it right – de-god and de-sex the words and make it allmore inclusive. It was apparently written as a prayer, not a national song or anthem, and that’s what it is all right.

It is unlikely that, before starting, the composer set down any fundamental aim or governing theme to pursue, such as our attitudes, aspirations, behaviour expectations, a fair go, equal status for all, care for the disadvantaged and so on.

To meet this objective I suggest the

following wording for consideration: Every creed and every race, we are one in freedom’s place. Friends to all both near and far – AOTEAROA

Equal status for us all, under fair and honest law, helping those who need a hand – Forge aheadNew Zealand

Let’s have some action, something to study and improve, instead of endless speculation. One verse is quite sufficient too.

Bill Wollerman, Lower Hutt

A health matter

Allen Heath (Letters, Jan 5) believes that drug use is ‘‘appallingly irresponsible’’. He fails to mention that some drugs are more ‘‘equal’’ than others. He also does not acknowledge the factors outside of personal choice that can lead to drug use.

The use of alcohol and nicotine is normal and widespread, and harmful. Cannabis has been tried by the majority of Kiwis and reportedly used by 12 per cent of them over the last 12 months.\

Many other drugs are used for ‘‘recreational’’ purposes, from mushrooms to synthetics. Prescription and pharmacy drugs are also available, some of which can be harmful if used incorrectly. None of this is new, even if the specifics have changed over the generations and centuries. What is new was the criminalisation of drug usage in the last century.

What is important is thatwe should treat drug usage as a healthmatter and not a criminal matter. The result of the referendum was close enough to at least de-criminalise recreational cannabis, if not to legalise it.

Simon Davis, Petone

Wake up to history