It’s time to overhaul the testing regime and get Britain moving again

SIR – The Covid testing regime currently in place causes more trouble to the economy than it’s worth.

By far the larger proportion of those testing positive are isolating without symptoms. Meanwhile, the omicron variant continues its relentless progress through the population on its trajectory to becoming another version of the common cold.

Here’s a novel idea: scrap testing. Stay at home if you feel ill but go about your business as usual if you are well. William Tarver

Wokingham, Berkshire

SIR – John Swinney, deputy first minister of Scotland, recently said: “What we have got to recognise is that omicron is a serious threat to absolutely everybody within our society and we have all got to take measures to protect ourselves by limiting our social contacts and connections.”

I would suggest that a virus that kills fewer than 1 per cent of those who catch it (and, of that group, many have comorbidities or are obese) should not be described in such lurid terms.

Is it any wonder that, with politicians engaging in such hyperbole, so many people are frightened out of their wits?

John McErlean

Elstow, Bedfordshire

SIR – As we approach 200,000 Covid cases a day, other countries have learnt how to manage the disease.

Japan now has an average of less than 300 cases a day, achieved through mask wearing, social distancing, vaccination and border controls. We have failed in the name of liberty; nearly 20,000 people have been killed by the virus since our “freedom day”. What sort of freedom is this? Professor Greg Philo

Glasgow University

SIR – Data from South Africa indicate that there is an effective T cell response against the omicron variant among people who have either been vaccinated or had a prior infection. In both these groups, therefore, it is their acquired immunity that is protecting them and others around them.

This follows the recent Global Covid-19 Summit at which the creator of mRNA vaccine technology, Dr Robert Malone, confirmed that healthy, unvaccinated young people pose no threat to others.

Why, then, does Sir Julian Brazier (Letters, December 29) wish to turn these people into second-class citizens by introducing vaccine passports? William Molesworth

Peterborough

SIR – I have been housebound since October 2020. I had my first two vaccines in Cornwall early in the year, then moved in October to the northwest of England. I am still waiting for someone to give me my third jab.

My family had to cancel the Boxing Day party I had planned as they did not want to put me at risk.

What is going on?

M A Whalley