So just what is the great lockdown escape plan?

THE Covid mask wearing confusion drags on with secondary secondary school students now being forced to wear masks whilst walking in school corridors.

I pity the poor teachers who have to enforce this rule. Before Covid some of the worst incidents of student indiscipline happened in school corridors as students moved between classes.

The mask wearing rule has just made this problem worse. I accept that many still find mask wearing a source of comfort. (Letters, August 25).

However, others regard public mask wearing as a badge of fear which adds to the irrational fear that surrounds the virus.

The Welsh Assembly has given Welsh people the discretion of wearing or not wearing masks whilst shopping. I wish we had that same freedom in England.

More voices are challenging the logic of lockdown. Dr. Ron Daniels of the Sutton Coldfield Good Hope hospital argues that the virus has passed its worst, that hospital Covid admissions are negligible and that a new approach to managing the virus is needed.

Professor Mark Woolhouse is a Government Covid adviser. He initially supported the lockdown but who now says: “Lockdown was a panic measure and I believe history will say trying to control Covid-19 through lockdown was a monumental mistake on a global scale. The cure was worse than the disease.”

With ONS data suggesting adult mental health concerns have doubled over the lockdown, it is easy to understand professor Woolhouse’s changed opinion.

Friends in Western Australia are now able to resume a more normal life though they still have to observe social distancing protocols. However, as with other Australians, they are not allowed to travel overseas and even inter-state travel is restricted. Lockdown has made Australians prisoners within their own country. They are all now Covid convicts.

If you are a lockdown supporter, quietly bouncing a ball against your living room wall, I simply ask you this: what is the great lockdown escape plan?

M. Judge, Coventry.

Closely associated with exam chaos

MY letter published on 26-08-20 was sent to you six days earlier on the 20th as I could clearly see likely coming events.

The use of an inappropriate algorithm was deliberately intended to embarrass the Education Minister and bring about his resignation.

Unfortunately for Ofqal the extent of their error in the awarding of predicted grades was so awry that a nitwit could glean their real intention, hence the sacking of head girl, Sally Collier.

I can see the hand of the teachers’ union in this conspiracy to unseat a sitting Minister and to cause mayhem in university clearing and so, no doubt, can the PM who sacked the top education civil servant, Johnathon Slater.

It is indeed fortunate that their ways are so palpable and countered with relative ease but the Labour Party must be squirming, being so closely associated with this debacle.

K. Lynch, Coventry.