Unvaccinated young Covid patients crowd out others seeking NHS care

SIR – Intensive care units are filling up with Covid patients, mostly young and unvaccinated. They spend more time in these units, thus blocking beds. Consequently operations for elective surgical patients needing intensive care beds post-op are sadly getting postponed.

The NHS has become a free insurance policy for the unvaccinated in case they get Covid. It is time to take that free insurance away.

The unvaccinated, unless exempted, should be asked to pay towards care in the NHS if they come for Covid-related treatment. The money should be deducted from their benefits, salary or university maintenance grant.

The public has a right to treatment in the NHS and cannot be held hostage by those who choose not to be vaccinated.

Dr Dipankar Bose

Consultant anaesthetist Warwick Hospital

SIR – We want to get our boosters, but when trying to book I was told we have to travel to Leeds or Doncaster. My husband doesn’t drive and I have just had a knee replacement.

My father, housebound and high risk, has been waiting weeks for his booster. When I last rang the GP’S surgery, I was told he should have had it. Yes, but he hasn’t.

And they wonder why boosters are not been taken up. What is going on? Rosie Sheppard

York

SIR – The booster jab could be added to the Covid travel pass from November 19. It appears, however, that the third dose for immunosuppressed people – not the regular booster – has not been added to the pass. I had my special third vaccination on October 17 but it is not recorded in my travel pass. By contrast my wife’s booster on the same date appears in her pass.

Israel has a 180-day vaccine certificate validity from the latest jab so, as my last recorded dose was April 17, I am stopped from going there. My wife can go.

Why has this anomaly been allowed? Michael Turner

Winchester, Hampshire

SIR – Perhaps surprisingly, in the week ending September 24, of 888 deaths from Covid, 444 were of people doubly vaccinated. This makes the drive for Covid passports look an illogical and nonsensical imposition.

Chris Speke

Chester

SIR – Austria has just under 9 million people. About 35 per cent are not vaccinated – just over 3 million, about 2 million of them adults.

Austria says that all citizens will have to be vaccinated by February. Those refusing will be fined and, if they do not pay the fine, imprisoned.

Austria has a prison capacity a little over 8,000 and prisons are already virtually filled to capacity. If many of the 2 million refuse to comply, where will the government imprison them? Robert Taylor