Lessons from the likes of Denmark and Norway are the ones that should be learned

All countries clearly have much to learn about how best to react to the coronavirus crisis, but the UK’S media and political focus on a limited peer group of larger countries surely does us a crucial and costly disservice.

Our media insists on showing us comparison charts between the UK, USA, France, Italy, Germany and Spain. Yet many parts of Scotland are closer to Denmark, Ireland and Norway than they are to London. If, rather than looking only at large countries, we look instead at these three smaller, neighbouring countries, we find per capita death rates that are a fraction of the UK’S.

So much progress has been made in Denmark and Norway that they are to reopen primary schools and nurseries in the coming week.

This suggests that their approaches are not only having better health outcomes so far, but are likely to limit economic and social dislocation too. Even within the UK, there are huge disparities between the death rates of the UK nations. Northern Ireland has weathered the storm best so far, with Scotland also showing substantially lower fatalities, on a per capita basis, than the UK average. Where is the analysis of what is going right, what is going wrong, and what learning can be shared?

As one of the UK Government’s key advisers suggests that the UK could end up the worst-hit country in Europe, this is not a time to cling to a strategy in order to save face.

It is surely a time to widen the net, swallow any pride, and to learn – quickly – from those whose strategies appear to be most effective.

C HEGARTY Glenorchy Road, North Berwick

Criticism of the shortage of tests for the coronavirus causing Covid-19 has centred in part upon the problem of NHS staff having to stay at home because a family member is showing Covid-like symptoms when these may actually arise from some other virus, such as that for flu or the common cold.

This leads me to wonder how likely some other infection is during the lockdown. How are other viruses faring, caught in the crossfire of our war against their cousin?

If other pathogens are suffering a setback, then that may yield a further reduction in non-covid-19 demands upon the NHS, adding to the savings from fewer road traffic accidents, sports injuries and drunken brawls.

But, if other viruses are equally vulnerable to our measures, then Covid-like symptoms within the family should perhaps be doubly worrying. These signs may, of course, indicate Covid-19, but even if this isn’t the case they would still show that the household isolation is not as effective as intended.

JOHN RISELEY Harcourt Drive, Harrogate