Nurses like me know the virus battle isn’t over
I AM a nurse and want to ask all my friends and family not to clap for me on Thursdays.
It’s because I am saddened that the traffic is like any normal day, people in the supermarket queue are talking about lockdown finishing and social distancing seems to be all but forgotten.
Don’t people realise nurses like me are battling to save patients and are having to phone the families of very sick people to tell them to prepare for the worst?
I am holding the hands of patients who are frightened while they struggle to breathe.
A second wave of this virus will cripple the NHS. Before you feel the need to make a non-essential journey, I beg you to remember the tens of thousands who have died, including NHS workers.
Staying at home may be hard, but please keep each other safe. BRENDA JONES, Thetford, Norfolk.
How does she do it?
I CRIED when I read Laura Hibbard’s harrowing account of her role as a clinical lead nurse in a care home (Mail).
How tragic to have to see so much death and not be able to allow families to visit their sick loved ones. The responsibility is onerous and I don’t know how she carries on.
Thank you, Laura, and all the care home staff for the care and love you give while putting your own lives at risk.
CAROL REGGEL, Leicester.
Disunited kingdom
WHY can’t the UK have a united approach to the pandemic (Letters)? The short answer is because of the convolutions of devolution. The Prime Minister is, in effect, only the First Minister of England for so many services including education, justice, local government, planning, police, communities and housing.
The four parts of the UK run their own health services.
All of this goes unrecognised in
England because it doesn’t have formal devolution with a separate English Parliament.
JIM ADAMSON, Cupar, Fife.
Buy British PPE
HOW wonderful that Mail Force is sourcing PPE made in Britain. Manufacturing can re-vitalise the economy and create jobs.
So much cheap, basic clothing comes from abroad and though it may cost more to make it in UK, we should value quality and jobs over profit.
L. O’CONNOR, London SW16.
On your bikes!
THE crazily late action in Edinburgh to close roads, reduce speed limits and widen pavements is now a gross waste of public funds.
The upsurge in cycling should be a horror for genuine cyclists as this new group will vanish like the proverbial snow as soon as the situation eases.
They are not capable of cycling up a mole hill, never mind Edinburgh’s hilly streets.
They are not using the roads anyway. They are on walkways, pavements, paths, parks, and as of last weekend, even cemeteries, travelling at 15-20 mph or more with no audible warning of approach.
Additionally, only the cyclists using the roads are abiding by the distancing instructions as the others are all within one metre of each other and pedestrians.
The police could be much more effective enforcing the law with these self-righteous pseudocyclists than moving the small family groups sitting in parks.
TOM KAY, Edinburgh.
Sturgeon’s sycophants
I AM totally sick and tired of people such as Piers Morgan, Andrew Marr and Robert Peston fawning all over Nicola Sturgeon.
They never ask her the difficult questions they ask the other parties — she always appears to get an easy passage from them. She runs Scotland for the benefit of the SNP and their followers, not for the rest of us.
I wonder if Morgan et al would change their opinions if they were paying Scottish taxes on their huge six-figure salaries. I somehow think they would see things differently!
If Scotland hadn’t been given a massive payout by the UK Government to cope with the pandemic, we would now be in dire straits.
GRAHAM BARCLAY, Dundee.
Pennies dropped
DO THOSE who cheerfully forecast a cashless society (Money Mail) realise how demoralising millions of us would find it?
No more the comforting weight of a pocketful of coins. Goodbye to the assurance of banknotes in wallet or purse. As for the traditional nest-egg, prudently accumulated to deal with unforeseen emergencies — forget it.
Henceforth, we will have to rely on an electronic equivalent, secure in theory, but potentially susceptible to hacking.
DENNIE THORP, Manchester.
Skies WILL clear
WHAT a breath of fresh air to read Dominic Sandbrook (Mail, Saturday) amongst all the doom and gloom-mongering. I have lived through boom and bust all my life and yes, life is good and we will see blue skies again.
TAM McGRAIL, High Blantyre, Lanarkshire.
Time for student fees?
EDINBURGH University’s finances are under ‘serious threat’ according to its principal Professor Peter Mathieson.
Will this be enough to convince Nicola Sturgeon that students from EU countries be charged the same fees as other foreign students, when they are finally allowed to resume studies there?
Probably not.
JEAN MUNRO, Kilmaurs, Ayrshire.