Treating UK population as lab animals during coronavirus crisis is grotesque
Why is Sir Patrick Vallance still in post? England’s chief scientific adviser last week proposed the outlandish, almost ghoulish pilot “herd immunity” experiment on the UK population – or “herd” as he termed it.
Experiments are meant to be ‘tested’ in the laboratory under strict controls, not unleashed on the general public where stopping it if it goes out of control would be impossible. It is surprising that no direct questions have yet been put to Sir Patrick on this issue and why there has been such a u-turn.
Yet, there is in No 10 a clown who is still treating the situation as a joke. In a conference call with manufacturers to aim for increasing the number of ventilators, Boris Johnson, it is reported, referred to this initiative as Operation Last Gasp. Speaks volumes. Did he ruffle his hair when uttering this? We are not told.
Nothing more needs to be said!
JOHN EDGAR Langmuir Quadrant, Kilmaurs
It is time for similar concern over bringing to others a virus which may be fatal for them.
JG RISELEY Harcourt Drive, Harrogate
I’ve kept up with the corona-fright news and from all accounts healthy people, no matter their age, don’t die from Covid-19. I accept that older folk are more likely to keel over but that’s true whatever disease happens to be going around. So it seems to me that the entire world is overreacting.
By all means lock up the old folk for a while but to trash the world economy is madness. Out of a population of 8 billion people, 6,500 have died. The experts here in the UK have
the un-scottish habits of air kissing and man hugging from our social intercourse.
DAVID HOGG Glanville Place, Edinburgh suggested the total who have/ had the virus is 55,000 which, I think, supports my argument, whenonly55oldfolkhavesuccumbed. If, as seems to be the message, no young people have died and only a few under the age of 70 have passed away (but all had underlying health problems) why the hysteria?
Isolate the older people and send them food to survive but let’s get everyone back to work, this is madness.
By the way, I’m 78.
STAN HOGARTH Young Street, Strathaven
news as there has been little reporting of the surge in Constraint Payments to switch off Scottish wind farms.
Over the first two months of the year more than £1 million a day has been paid by Scottish consumers, highlighting the failure of the policy, initiated by Alex Salmond when
I am a retired veterinary pathologist with experience of working in many different laboratories, in some of which I was responsible for the control of rabies (in humans as well as animals) and for tetanus, one a viral infection and one a bacterial disease.
If a person was bitten by a rabid dog, or showed clinical signs of tetanus, then the immediate treatment was to inject hyper-immune serum, followed by the appropriate vaccine or drugs.
It takes many months, if not years, to produce a vaccine against a disease but producing hyperimmune serum is a matter of weeks.
I have made extensive enquiries of the medical profession as to why hyperimmune serum is not being produced, at least to treat the people like me (I am in my 80s).
Should I contract the disease, then I am in the high risk group.
ROGER WINDSOR Middlefield House,
By Dumfries