Wanted: someone who gets things done, to make a crisis exit possible
sir – The mass testing, contact tracing and isolation of relevant individuals in Singapore and South Korea enabled the maintenance of economic activity and the control of coronavirus, which resulted in the death rate in those countries being a tenth of that here.
We missed that boat coming into the crisis; we should not miss it in enabling our exit.
Testing for having Covid-19, and antibody tests, will be key to restarting the economy and limiting parallel noncovid deaths and sickness.
Academic expertise in epidemiology will not deliver this. It needs different skills, of project management, supplychain assembly and swift decisionmaking that does not let pursuit of the perfect prevent delivery of the good.
We are in danger of repeating the entry errors unless we put people with those skills in charge of delivering mass testing.
Sir John Oldham
Adjunct Professor in Global Health Innovation
Imperial College, London sir – I am 75, my husband 81. Professor Sam Shuster (Letters, April 6) is right. The Government should isolate the over-70s and the compromised, and let everyone else return to normal life.
It is vital for the economy that most people go back to work. Mary Evans
Repton, Derbyshire
sir – Perhaps if, instead of the phrase “herd immunity”, we used “societal immunity” or “general population immunity” it would make the concept more acceptable to politicians and the majority of people who prefer not to be compared to wildebeest. Robert Barlow
Little Bookham, Surrey
sir – This lockdown is a severe curfew, if only one hour a day is allowed outside one’s home to exercise.
Even in the two world wars we could socially interact, which is what being human is about.
We have only been in this lockdown for two weeks. It is envisaged for much longer. Many more people who live in small flats with no garden, who have young children or live on their own will go insane.
If the Government persists with this course, civil disobedience and complete economic collapse will ensue, both of which will cause problems worse than the pandemic. Dr Michael AP Spencer
Adstock, Buckinghamshire
sir – As a retired teacher, I would like to offer Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, a word of advice. If one child in the class is messing about, the way to deal with the problem is not to punish everyone else.
To threaten all British people with a full lockdown, just because a small minority are not co-operating, will create immense bad feeling at the very least.
Since the transgressors can so easily be identified, why can’t the authorities just target them more effectively? Peter Baker
Goring-by-sea, West Sussex