Fines will not contain spread of the disease

YOU do not need a PhD in epidemiology to gain a broad idea of how contagious respiratory diseases spread from human to human. An O-level in history might be better.

The pandemic of a century ago provided ample evidence and long before that, the exploits of European explorers across the Atlantic in the Tudor period provide clear evidence of how mixing different cultures with those with no immunity can rapidly spread pathogens.

How to avoid or at least mitigate such calamities has been known for centuries. We do not need politicians to repeatedly tell us and bombard us with restrictions and threat of fines which bear little or no relevance to containing disease spread.

A virus or bacterium does not know whether it is residing in the throat of someone at a football match or a tattoo parlour but politicians seem to be able to judge by demanding different restrictions on who must be restrained and for how long. Common sense is not allowed to intrude.

The Metrication Board was set up in 1969, so even the oldest members of our society should have a shrewd idea of what two metres looks like. Customers are continuously berated for using too much plastic yet hundreds of thousands of metres of pavements and shop floors are festooned with the stuff, which will ultimately lead to the deaths of untold numbers of whales and other cetaceans, merely to tell us what we already know.

Perhaps someone should tell our leaders that granny might be allergic to albumen.

Anthony G Phillips Salisbury, Wiltshire