Maintain the lockdown

iT HAS been reported that a government pandemic modeller is still promoting the now discredited herd immunity theory as a way out of the lockdown (Mail).

This view is based on the fallacy that we can return to ‘ normal’ economic life without eliminating the virus.

The world is dividing into countries that have effectively eliminated the contagion and those risking the virus becoming endemic.

if we remain in the second category, it will do enormous damage to our economy, with the service sector, from tourism to teaching international students, at grave risk.

it is crucial to maintain the lockdown to stop the health service being overwhelmed. We need urgently to develop the testing, tracking and isolation of cases, which have proved so successful elsewhere.

Blame is being heaped on China and the World Health Organisation over coronavirus, but it is easy to be wise with hindsight.

When this began in Wuhan, the virus was unknown, its transmission rate and deadly consequences were little understood.

China was wrong to silence whistleblowers and it could have acted faster, but it is a huge decision to shut down a giant economy, as we are finding out.

When China shared the genetic code for the virus with the rest of the world on January 12, we should have begun work immediately on diagnostic kits and testing. When Wuhan was isolated on January 23, it signalled the scale of the crisis.

it is not their fault that we did so little then and our health service was not well equipped. China has sent us much needed ventilators and we need to continue this co-operation. if we are to get through this, the world must act together. Professor GREG PHILO,

Glasgow University.