Fewer births and a move to the countryside could reduce threat of pandemics

In our grossly overpopulated world, we’ll have to reckon with recurring pandemics.

Since people living and working cheek-by-jowl spread diseases, we need a lower and less urbanised population, even in Scotland.

Therefore, two policies should be adopted: (a) end subsidies for having kids, and (b) end the economic drag of taxing people for working, investing and consuming, by using our community-created land values for revenue instead. These being far lower outside our big cities, there’ll be a fiscal incentive to move out.

A renaissance of our small towns and villages can be achieved.

GEORGE MORTON Hudson Road, Rosyth

In his fine analysis of the pros and cons of having a mobile phone app for contact-tracing potential Covid-19 sufferers (“Virus tracing app will raise fundamental concerns over privacy”, 22 April), Martyn Mclaughlin asks whether the National Cyber Security Centre might have played some role in the instigation of this technology.

Certain sections of the security and police services will be fervently hoping for covert influence in the design and use of such software.

Their last IT tool for intrusively monitoring private citizens, that is, facial recognition technology, has been neutralised by another consequence of Covid-19: the medium and long term use of lo-tech face masks.

DAVID MUIR Findhorn Place, Edinburgh

Dominic Raab appears to be unaware of the fact well known in the field of laboratory medicine that what goes on in the laboratory is the easy part to manage.

Has he not been told? His “capacity” to have 100,000 samples a day analysed is meaningless without also developing the capacity to have 100,000 samples taken with the correct procedure from the correct subjects, sent with the correct information in the correct container to the correct laboratory.

Also needed, of course, is the mechanism to transmit the correct results with the correct interpretation to the sender.

Or maybe he does know, but hopes the public don’t.

(DR) ANTHONY BIRCH Dargai Terrace, Dunblane