I may not be here next year so, yes, we’ll ignore rules
■ I have cancer and a 40 per cent chance of not being here next Christmas so weeks ago we, as a family, made plans. The kids took time off work to selfisolate and bought some Covid tests, which they would have taken yesterday. If everyone had tested negative, we would have met on Christmas Day. I’ve had Covid so this is about them not spreading it to each other.
My dad died four weeks ago due to Parkinson’s disease and caught the coronavirus in hospital. My mum was to spend her first Christmas alone with us.
We cannot be the only family unable to guarantee we will be here next Christmas so – in the light of the new Covid restrictions on households mixing (Metro, Mon) – we will have an illegal Christmas, which worries me so much.
Roll out these quick-result Covid tests and get mass testing in tier 4 for people in this position. Allow last memories to be made before it’s too late. Covid is not the only killer disease out there.
Tracey, Hertfordshire
■ Dear Boris, when you announced your plans for relaxing the rules at Christmas, I, like any sensible person, wondered what on you were thinking. What happened to ‘following the science’?
So I listened to the experts and decided to do what we’ve been urged to do from day one: I used my common sense and told friends and family to stay away.
And now you’ve made Christmas more difficult for people who have made plans but I’m glad you’ve finally caught up with the rest of the nation. I appreciate you have a very difficult job to do so here’s my advice – listen to the scientists you were so fond of at the beginning of this pandemic.
Julie M, Leicester
Stop holding Boris responsible for what’s happening in the UK. The government is doing its best in a pandemic that has gripped the planet.
World leaders are acting exactly the same. But why is the British public not abiding by the science-based instructions? Why are city mayors and MPs shouting their tops off, saying they would have acted differently and calling for untold amounts of support?
I see neighbours in and out of each other’s houses, going shopping together from many households. ‘It’s only like the flu’, ‘I’m not being told what to do in my own home’, ‘I’m not wearing a bloody mask’ – the usual.
I’ve been shielding since March. I’m extremely vulnerable and I’m waiting for a vaccination. I’ve missed so much in the lives of my children (front-line workers) and my grandkids. They are living on a knife edge – one has had Covid, stuck in bed with two children in the house, a one-parent family.
Why are so many people acting so selfishly? When you get it, remember what you failed to do. If you have to bury a loved one, just remember: it’s no good thinking ‘if only’. Let’s work together and – unlike the Labour party – support the PM.
M, Aylesbury
■ Covid has seen British society become less able (or less willing) to view things from another’s perspective. As a liberal (a ‘fence-sitter’, if you like), I try to see both sides. First, Angela (MetroTalk, Fri) is misreading those such as Susan (Thu) who blame the pandemic on people not wearing masks. Yes, Angela, there may be some unable to wear
them but Susan is referring to others, such as the idiots who attend large gatherings.
And while I agree that the government keeps giving out mixed messages, I’m more inclined to Jenny’s view (also Fri) that we’re responsible for our own actions, although I don’t think we should let our prime minister off the hook.
Sadly, many people need coercing into doing what’s best, while others too easily fall for conspiracy theories to care and still others think their ‘civil liberties’ trump (pun intended) the well-being of others (I’m a liberal, not a libertarian).
So the PM must take the rap for being too soft on enforcing the rules (is every unmasked twentysomething really exempt?) But then such enforcement would be so un-British!
I’m staying at home with my wife over Christmas. Our beloved daughter and her family are doing likewise. We would rather meet for Christmas but feel it’s in all our interests not to.
And please don’t think sitting on the fence is comfortable because it isn’t. I have the splinters to prove it!
Laury Burr, Bromley
■ Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, inset left, describes the prime minister as a negligent, weak leader whose decisions are often taken too late (Metro, Mon).
Most of us have memories of the photos of mask-wearing Italian soldiers patrolling the streets of Italy as the virus spread in February but the UK didn’t go into lockdown until March. And since then (and more than 60,000 Covid deaths later) our government has constantly been behind the curve.
There’s just over a week to go until we risk crashing out of the EU without a deal and, with the mutant variant of Covid spreading and European countries closing their borders to the UK, our MPs need to cancel their Christmas break and get back to parliament to sort this!
Alan Jensen, West Hampstead
■ I don’t know what is the answer to Covid-19 but it’s clear lockdowns and tier systems don’t work given the lack of resources available to fund enforcement and people’s seemingly endless quest to find ways around the government health rules. David Hamm, Devon