Sturgeon must ensure airport tests are tighter
I HAVE just returned to Glasgow from Spain. When arriving in Alicante, Spain, we went through passport control, a separate group then checked everyone had completed the medical form by scanning the QR code (no QR code, no entry), we then passed through an area where two nurses checked everyone’s temperature using an infrared camera.
Very efficient and professionally done. We had a safe holiday, rules are rigorously enforced by the police, mask-wearing mandatory.
We returned to Glasgow where we passed through passport control – no check by QR code that you had completed the medical form, or indeed any scanning and definitely no temperature checks.
Given the draconian rules Nicola Sturgeon is putting in place on the public, might it not be within her remit to ensure airports in Scotland are at least matching the Spanish process on people coming from abroad?
One other thing – neither my wife nor I have been contacted yet to check we are self-isolating.
ScottishPower, however, categorically refuse – under contract and due to government guidance – to repair our broken boiler under any circumstances leaving myself and my wife, both pensioners, in a house with no heating and hot water until the two weeks isolation is complete.
Nicola can talk a good game but given my experience I see little evidence she is actually doing anything constructive.
BILL ADAIR, via email.
Screening paradox
IT IS suggested that the answer to the coronavirus crisis is mass testing (Letters).
In fact, increased testing is causing more problems than it solves. The current test is the PCR test, which involves a swab of the nose and throat. Sadly, this is not a specific test for Covid-19, as a subject can test positive if they have had a cold in the past year. It often picks up dead viral genetic material and viral fragments from past infections, and has a false positive rate of 0.8 per cent. x
This may sound small but it can cause problems when the prevalence of the virus is low, as at present. Also, a false positive rate of 0.8 per cent does not mean the test is 99.2 per cent accurate.
If you test 10,000 people with the PCR test when the prevalence of the virus is just 0.1 per cent, then you will get ten true positives and 80 false positives, giving a total of 90 ‘cases’, most of whom have nothing wrong with them.
This is due to something called the False Positive Paradox, which states that when the prevalence of a virus is low, you get more false positives than true positives.
I believe the current spike in cases is due to a massively increased number of tests, the False Positive Paradox and the increase in other upper respiratory infections at this time of year, which are being wrongly diagnosed as Covid-19. Mass testing in the community should be paused until there is a more reliable and accurate test.
Dr COLIN M. BARRON,
Dunblane, Perthshire.
Infected by hysteria
HUMANITY has lived with infectious diseases from time immemorial, many of these shared with animals. From time to time there is a crossover such as Covid-19.
When a novel infection appears, people are fearful, but when it becomes clear most will survive, societies get used to it, seeing it as a nuisance rather than allowing it to disrupt their whole way of life.
Experience has taught us to use behavioural interventions to slow the spread of infection while medical science catches up. But today our politicians have let us fall into the hands of a scientific elite with limited understanding of humanity. They insist infections must be eliminated but fail to see this may be impossible or the cost more damaging than the disease.
Yet until we started flu vaccinations, outbreaks killed up to 50,000 vulnerable people but no one argued that trashing the economy would help.
If we treat Covid-19 in the same way and get on with our lives, we’ll just return to the flu death rates before vaccination. The fact is too many ‘researchers’ are cheerleaders for climate hysteria and this has infected medical science.
DR JOHN CAMERON,
St Andrews, Fife.
Time to raise vote age?
THE thing that really terrifies me is that all those daft young people going to house parties and raves and mingling in parks without masks or social distancing are the decision makers of tomorrow. Should we not be raising the voting age, instead of lowering it?
O. STEWART, Glasgow.
Low blows on climate
BLEAK northerly winds on September 24 brought wintery conditions early (Mail).
Parts of West Yorkshire experienced hail and snow, creating an unseasonal winter wonderland. Altnaharra in the Highlands recorded -5C – the UK’s coldest September night since 1997.
The Met Office is forecasting temperatures again plummeting to below zero for some. Is this the global warming the green zealots are hysterical about?
CLARK CROSS, Linlithgow, West Lothian.
Far from privileged
I WOULD like to express my heartfelt gratitude for the letter from Jill McGarry, who echoed the opinions of the silent majority of our generation (Letters). Like Jill, I was born after the war and saw my parents, who both worked so hard, suffer many hardships with no help from any quarter.
There was no central heating or benefits but somehow we children went to school clean, smart and fed.
There was no spare cash for many treats but they worked hard to ensure we were never hungry. My life, like Jill’s, followed a path where you didn’t expect any help and, like my parents before me, I worked hard for my family.
The achievements of my husband and myself were hardearned. We had to just get on with life, with all its ups and downs.
This so-called privilege of white people is a ludicrous concept. Perhaps if others made themselves aware of our history and really grasped what life was like for the working class of this country, it might just open their eyes.
I applaud Jill for standing up and saying what so many are thinking.
VERONICA CARROLL,
address supplied.
Unhealthy obsession
AFTER 13 years of SNP rule, Scotland has now, officially, the lowest life expectancy rate in Western Europe.
In addition, the difference in life expectancy between the richest and poorest regions of this country is a staggering 13 years.
If those at present still making the decisions would only set aside their unhealthy and obsessive preoccupation with breaking up the UK and concentrate instead on improving the lives and conditions of the people – for which they have all the levers – perhaps we could make an inroad into these horrifying statistics.
ALEXANDER MCKAY,
Edinburgh.