Government threats of lockdown are as unfair as keeping the whole class in school detention
sir – The Government threatens, or intends, wholesale lockdown because of a few alleged irresponsibilities. I am reminded of teachers long ago who kept the whole class in after school because of the misdemeanours of a few.
Even as children of a tender age, we instinctively felt that this was not only unfair on those of us who’d behaved but also the sign of a bad teacher. Such teachers were usually, and swiftly, replaced.
Michael Round
London SW19
sir – Yesterday I watched two scientists deliver an entirely political briefing. What on earth is going on with our Government?
Paul Gaynor
Windermere, Cumbria
sir – With the very real prospect of being thrust into lockdown once more, the quotation from an unnamed United States infantry major during the Vietnam War comes to mind. He was interviewed by Peter Arnett after the battle of Ben Tre and said: “It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.”
Simon Edwards
Stratford-upon-avon, Warwickshire
sir – Sir Patrick Vallance, the Chief Scientific Adviser to the Government, tells us the epidemic is doubling every seven days.
Thus, he calculates – somewhat frighteningly – that we will have 50,000 new infections a day by mid-october and 200 deaths a day a couple of weeks later.
Applying exactly the same method, the entire population will have had Covid-19 and 11.5 million of us will be dead before Christmas Day. Shortly after New Year’s Day, all human life in the United Kingdom will have ended.
Merry Christmas, everyone.
Chris Kirk-blythe
Manchester
sir – The testing system is certainly being ineptly run, but that is not its real flaw. Matt Hancock has stated that the rate of false positive results is only around 1 per cent. Trivial, then? No!
Out of 100,000 tests you will get 1,000 “cases” that are no such thing. A large percentage of cases reported in shocked tones on the news represent people who do not have the virus. So much for following “the science”.
Alex Baillie
Dochfour, Inverness-shire
sir – Boris Johnson says he is “fighting the virus” by reimposing restrictions. He isn’t. He is simply inviting the virus to bide its time until an economic meltdown or public rebellion against the lockdown forces a change in policy and allows it to spread again.
The only way in which it will be defeated is through herd immunity or a vaccine, both of which seem a long way off. We must learn to live with it.
Dr Mike Ruscoe
London SW15
sir – I don’t think I have ever seen a more worrying time for free speech and the sanity of the nation. Parliament should insist that rule by ministerial decree ends and that we get back to being a functioning democracy.
No draconian lockdown measures should be implemented without full debate in Parliament. To learn you could be fined £10,000 for leaving your front door is unacceptable.
Boris Johnson and the Government need to inspire the country. We are in grave danger of losing the compliant goodwill of the people.
I consider myself to be a law-abiding citizen but when I hear of proposed changes to restrictions, the first thing I think of is how to circumvent them.
Robert Taylor
Ruddington, Nottinghamshire
sir – Might I suggest that those of us who disapprove of the Government’s lockdown measures demonstrate our dissent by standing on our doorsteps on Thursday evening and banging a saucepan with a wooden spoon?
John Moore
Woolpit, Suffolk