Why have we all turned into a nation of wimps?

THERE are lies, damned lies and statistics, said Disraeli ( according to Mark Twain). Witty but not true. Statistics are simply figures and unless deliberately manipulated they give a true picture.

According to the Office for National Statistics about 70 people die every single day in this country from flu or pneumonia. We have accepted this figure with regret but no panic for many years.

The daily death rate from Covid is averaging about seven. Yet our limp- wristed Government has used the panic over Covid to destroy our economy and millions of careers and thus lives.

Coronavirus has a blisteringly fast contagion rate yet, compared with other illnesses, a tiny lethality percentage. So why have we allowed it to wreck our country? Have we moved from the people who won the Battle of Britain and survived the Blitz to a nation of wimps?

MUCH praise has been showered on the frontline workers of the NHS and quite right too. The shambles that envelops a once world- admired national healthcare service is not their fault. It is managerial and derives from the overpaid drones above the ward staff. But there is another national service that has doggedly kept going with few plaudits.

Throughout all the e turmoil little red vans ns have been puttering g through streets, delivering our letters, keeping us all in touch with each other, with next- day delivery still the general rule. Well done, lads and lasses, though if you u could mislay some of the tsunami of bills, that’d be nice.

THERE has been much speculation that people of BAME ethnicity are more likely to contract Covid- 19 than those of pinkish complexion. There may be a simpler explanation.

People in the countryside are far more widely distanced than those of the suburbs and those of the inner cities are sandwiched cheek by jowl.

Yet the figure- totting makes no distinction. All are lumped together but those of BAME derivation are much more likely to be in the cities where congestion plays a big role.

In my village there are two centres of gathering; church and pubs ( two). Yet though one and all would be welcome, the complexion of both crowds remains as a bottle of rosé. Perhaps it is not about ethnicity but where we choose to live.