Irresponsible gatherings

WE have had coronavirus in Britain for 14 months, and 120,000 citizens have died. Do British adults comprehend that every single person who died, died only because of a microscopic virus which had itself derived from the nasal passages of some other, infected person, expelled into the air we all breathe? There is no other place in the universe, from

which infection could be transmitted from one person to many, many more.

From that irrefutable fact, we should now recognise that, if we all had been more careful in our behaviour, so that transmission from one person to unknown others, had been less, many of those people would still be alive.

Rangers football fans did not care if their childish antics led to viruses spreading from a few, to many, causing death. The police appealed to a large gathering in Clapham, who knew full well that this gave the virus the opportunity to infect hundreds more.

It seems strange that a mass vigil to commemorate the death of a woman, should be deliberately and irresponsibly made into an obvious threat to the lives of others, passed on to their even more innocent relatives.

CN WESTERMAN Brynna, Mid Glam

TRAVEL restrictions in Wales are set to be eased later this month, and the UK Government health secretary Matt Hancock has said that he’s in “no doubt” that people will be free to travel around the UK in the coming weeks.

From March 27, the ‘stay local’ guidance in Wales that has been in place since March 13 will be lifted in time for the Easter holidays.

First Minister Mark Drakeford said that the guidance for ‘staying local’ was generally a five-mile radius, but it could be further for people in Wales who live in more rural locations. But he did confirm to Walesonline that from March 27 people would be able to “travel anywhere in Wales”.

But the rules in place in England mean that travel across the border will still not be allowed and journeys can only be for essential reasons.

Holiday accommodation operators in Wales are not allowed to take bookings from people from other parts of the UK over Easter because of the rules in the different countries.

Mr Drakeford has said that he hoped tourism would be open to people outside of Wales by the summer if the coronavirus situation continued to improve.

“At Easter time, Welsh people will be able to travel for holidays over Easter within Wales, and to self-contained accommodation,” the First Minister said.

“The rules in England will not permit that. The Prime Minister’s road map says that for the weeks after March 29, people should minimise travel, there are to be no holidays, and people won’t be allowed to stay away from home overnight.

“If it won’t be safe to stay overnight in England, then obviously it would not be safe for people to travel into Wales.”

Mr Hancock has now voiced his hope that restrictions on travel around the UK will be removed soon.

Mr Hancock said: “We have set out when the English restrictions will be removed and will lift the stay-at-home message as part of the road map out. I have no doubt that within a short few weeks everybody will be allowed to travel around the UK so long as we are able to keep this progress going. Both the progress in the Ukwide vaccination effort and keeping the number of cases under control.”

The stay at home rule ends in England on Monday, March 29, but the government says it will still be urging people to stay local at that point.

There is no date in the English timetable for when travel around England will be allowed.