Deadly delay

HAVING watched the performance of Matt Hancock and Jeane Freeman on television i was very unimpressed by their performance.

What a contrast to the performance by the representative of South korea and Professor Devi Sridhar of Edinburgh university.

Both made it abundantly clear that the only way to tackle this virus was by rigorous and universal testing and screening — and that speed is of the essence.

in the uk, we are faced by the blanket assertion that ‘we must follow the science’.

in setting up their algorithm, our scientists have used data from non-European countries and have compounded this with flawed, non-tested data as they have refused to test all possible incidents.

So here we have a government basing its strategy on a false algorithm based on flawed data. And it gets worse. Why did it take Matt Hancock nearly three months to realise that 5,000 respirators were going to be wholly inadequate and plead on national television: ‘you make them we’ll buy them’?

Why did it take nearly three months for Matt Hancock and the SNP Scottish government to issue Personal Protection Equipment to their front line staff, particularly GPS — the very action that Professor Sridhar has been strongly advocating for months?

The government is now suggesting that over-70s should be quarantined for maybe three months.

This must surely be the cruellest knee-jerk reaction based on no evidence whatsoever.

is it just that this group no longer contributes largely to the Exchequer and can be abandoned to three months’ imprisonment with nothing scientific to back up this decision?

JOHN L RIMMER, Hamilton, Lanarkshire.