Take off our masks and learn to live with Covid

I AM sure R. Frost is sincere in his wish for more people to wear face masks (Letters, 12 August).

However, many people dislike wearing face masks and regard them as a badge of fear. More, there is a growing body of opinion that views the whole concept of the lockdown as a mistake and believe that society may never be able to beat the virus. Rather than fight the virus, we should learn to live with it.

Perhaps the first mistake in the war against Covid was confusing it with the flu virus. The two are related but significantly different.

Science is still learning but there is no universally accepted policy on how to deal with the Covid pandemic. In particular, the research on the efficacy of mask wearing is at best ambiguous. Wearing masks could do as much harm as good.

Arguably the greatest cause of concern is that up to 95% of children with Covid show no symptoms. This torpedoes the whole concept of lockdown as it is impossible to know the true incidence of the virus in the population. No cases does not mean no virus. It simply means the virus has not been detected.

New Zealand claims to have had only a few cases of the virus. However, hundreds, if not thousands of young, healthy Kiwis could have the virus but not show symptoms.

Sweden only adopted a policy of partial lockdown it was predicted to have over 96,000 fatalities by June. It had only 5,000. Belarus ignored lockdown completely and though that country’s data is questionable, the predicted catastrophe has not happened.

The UK’S lockdown policy was based on bad mathematical predictions.

Then there is the problem of false positives in testing. The present ratio of false to true positives in testing could be as high as 10:1.

This means the daily figures posted for new cases are greatly exaggerated. There will never be a miracle cure for Covid-19. We can only learn to live with it. It is time for Government to change policy. The Government should let us take off our masks and the country should be allowed to breathe again.

M. Judge, Coventry.

Brilliant walk through history

I JUST want to say a big thank you to proud Cov Kid Paul Curtis AKA The Deep Fact Friar whose socially distanced 90 minute walk through a millenium of local history on Saturday 15th August was fascinating, humorous and very informative.

I’m so glad I booked myself a place on the walk as who knew that Coventry hosted the ‘Parliament of Dummies’ in 1404 or that Henry VIII spent one of his honeymoons in Coventry at Nandos?

Take one of Paul’s great walks as soon as you can and support all that he is doing to champion our city.

P. Sheehan, Coventry.

M.jones, Exhall. I TOOK this photo in School Lane, Exhall. It could be a good question for a quiz. Is it a drain or a badly kept flower bed? As the rains come and floods sometime follow would it not be helpful to make sure all the drains are clear to give the water some chance to disperse? But please don’t blame lockdown, this drain has been like this for over two years.