It makes no sense for the Prime Minister to be forbidden a Covid test

sir – Where else but in this crazy country, at this critical time, would our political leader, who has already had and recovered from Covid-19, not take the necessary and available test to confirm his good health because it is “against the rules”?

Have we lost all notions of proportion and common sense? Professor R A Risdon

London SW13

sir – What madness is this? Boris Johnson is told he must self-isolate because he was in contact with someone infected with Covid-19 (report, November 16). He was laid low by the virus earlier this year, so what are the chances of him getting it again? Worldwide, more than 50 million people have had this infection and only a few dozen are said to have had a second attack. So statistically his risk is minuscule.

Mr Johnson says: “The rules are the rules.” Well, yes, but surely only if they make sense. That his lack of symptoms means that he doesn’t qualify for a

Covid-19 test is a perfect example of the amateur approach of the Government to this pandemic. Surely our Prime Minister can have a test – even every day if he needed it – to allow him to run the country.

Is he seeing a doctor regularly while locked down in his flat ? If not, why not? Could anyone imagine Presidentelect Biden being treated in this manner if he was told he had been in contact with a Covid patient?

Tony Narula FRCS

Wargrave, Berkshire

sir – Why is Boris Johnson selfisolating? He had Covid-19 earlier in the year and will be immune to the virus.

Documented recurrent infections with Covid-19 are vanishingly rare so far. Naturally acquired immunity will be stronger than that derived from immunisation.

Does this mean that, even after immunisation, an individual will still have to isolate for 14 days after contact with a “case”? Does this mean we will have to be immunised every six months, and at what cost?

Dr Geoffrey Maidment Farnham Royal, Buckinghamshire

sir – My grandson was sent home from school as he had a cough, and his parents were told to keep him, and themselves, in isolation for two weeks, or get a Covid test.

No NHS tests were available, so one was bought for £120. It was negative and he returned to school within two days. So why is the Prime Minister not getting tested and carrying on at the helm when the country faces a Covid crisis and crucial Brexit negotiations? Alan Belk

Leatherhead, Surrey

sir – If Boris Johnson is not entitled to a test as Prime Minister, would he not be able to have one as an elite sportsman if he was obligingly signed up by one of the Premier League clubs? He is, after all, a premier.

Elizabeth Stevenson

London SW5