Covid death rate

Professor Paddy Farrington (Letters, 11 June) claims that the UK has a coronavirus death rate “only matched... by the US”.

Last time I checked just a few days ago, using figures published by a highly-regarded university, the US was down at eighth in this unhappy league, the UK (including Scotland) was second, not all that different from Italy and Spain at third and fourth and Belgium was the leader.

He also claims that our position is due almost entirely to the “catastrophic error” of not employing lockdown earlier (why wasn’t he using his position to timely shout out about this?) but fails to explain why Sweden, with no lockdown, has had a far lower death rate.

One obvious reason for the rapid spread here is, as I have suggested previously (Letters, 4 May), population density. Brian Monteith’s “pressganged statistics” mainly tried to put numbers to this. I should add that frequently updated maps readily available on the internet clearly demonstrate the same. The UK is more disadvantaged in this respect than any other European country.

Finally, I will repeat that, in spite of Professor Farrington’s claim, Scotland did have all of the resources necessary for a go-it-alone approach to this

tragedy, but wisely chose not to.

Sadly, the one Covid-19 area in which the UK really does seem to be a world leader is political point scoring by those possessing what I have called “prescient hindsight”.

(DR )A MCCORMICK Kirkland Road, Terregles