An obligatory smartphone Covid app would turn into an electronic tag

Sir – Not everyone has a smartphone, or wants one. Those proposing Covid-19 status apps (report, February 24) for UK use seem to forget this.

Or do they suggest that smartphones should be mandatory and we must have one with us at all times? If so, why stop with Covid-19 status? Dr Alex May Manchester

Sir – With his classical education, the Prime Minister will be well aware of the myth of Pandora’s Box. A domestic vaccination passport is one such unwanted gift. Open it and the spirit of a national ID card will fly out. Today is not like 2010; it will prove impossible to return it to the box.

Russell Hunt

Fleet, Hampshire

Sir – The government website advises pregnant women not to be vaccinated unless they are at high risk.

Employers cannot lawfully ask women if they are pregnant, and many women may want to keep a pregnancy private for a few months. Requiring vaccine certificates would have a disproportionate, adverse impact on women and would be discriminatory. Ann O’brien

Leeds, West Yorkshire

Sir – Michael Tyce (Letters, February 23) is right to attribute exaggerated fears of Covid to baleful government messaging. As the great H L Mencken said: “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.” Charles Mercey

Tellisford, Somerset

Sir – Boris Johnson has achieved a world beater. He has combined a leading vaccine rollout with the longest lockdown on the planet.

This isn’t a roadmap to freedom, it’s an extension of lockdown subject to ill-defined criteria. The lockdown jihadists have won, game, set and match (if we were allowed to play tennis). The rest of us can simply watch as society and the economy atrophy. Gary Graves

Richmond, Surrey

Sir – The Government uses highly subjective language to justify its appalling lack of understanding of risk.

This approach to lockdown release is not “cautious”. It ignores the catastrophic effects on the health and prosperity of the nation of extending lockdown. It is like a government praising “caution” in banning the motor car to avoid road deaths. Jonnie Bradshaw

South Warborough, Oxfordshire

Sir – I shall believe in the roadmap to freedom when Parliament reconvenes in person.

Gwen Settle

Pinner, Middlesex

Sir – It is interesting to see that Mars also appears to be in lockdown.

NP Scott

Reigate, Surrey