Funding system for vital public services may be changed

From: Tom Farrell, Lairs Lane, Snainton.

I HAVE been shopping in Scarborough and seen the disregard for social distancing.

Security staff need to be enforcing this.

All supermarkets need to adopt the Waitrose model of limiting access (one in, one out).

The seafront should be closed off and police put on junctions outside Scarborough to forcibly stop visitors coming.

This pandemic has been forecast for a long time with threat level one being assigned – nuclear war is at level two.

So you would think preparing for a pandemic would be the priority to invest in?

No, this Government is investing over £50bn in renewing the Trident deterrent (not including running costs).

Since 2010 the NHS and public services (now crucial to the fight) have had job cuts and resources rationed.

This is a dereliction of duty to protect the public. And now the chickens are coming home to roost.

When this finishes, I hope people will remember the workers (NHS, teachers, shops, delivery drivers, postal, refuse and community volunteers) who are exposing themselves to infection in order to save others.

The self-employed will be at food banks as this Government has abandoned them.

Stay at home only works if you’re not desperate to feed your family and pay your rent.

We’re only ‘all in this together’ if we live in a fair society.

So those of us who survive need to remember who has got us through this and change the system that has failed us.

From: Valerie Smith, Harrogate.

ALMOST everything proposed as a solution to coronavirus and our health requires the use of computers and smart phones.

The over-70s are the people least likely to be computerliterate.

I know lots of us are but many are not, and are even more isolated if they can’t have visitors or go out to shop and see friends.

Could you point out that there are other ways of offering support?

A telephone call or a letter. And it needs to be regular: not just a card to granny now and forget it for the rest of the summer, but a postcard every week or a phone call.

From: Andrew Mercer, Guiseley.

IT still staggers me at the extent to which cyclists are ignoring self-distancing protocols. Time for some police action here.