After two years of Government inaction, the NHS is closer to collapse
SIR – As Plan B is launched in response to omicron, the truth of the matter is probably not that omicron is a greater threat to us, but that after two years, the NHS is actually more at risk of collapse than ever.
This has less to do with Covid than with this Government’s failure to address the reasons why the NHS cannot cope in the winter and then to do something about it.
There has been too much emphasis on party politics and a plethora of other less important issues, combined with a willingness to allow the beleaguered NHS to flounder along as normal. I feel desperately sorry for the frontline NHS staff who must struggle daily to carry out their life-saving work in such a dysfunctional organisation.
Helping these dedicated people to provide a service that can withstand seasonal variations and unforeseen events, such as Covid, should be this Government’s highest priority. Why isn’t it?
Thomas Le Cocq
Batcombe, Somerset
SIR – Boris Johnson describes the new Covid measures as “proportionate and responsible”.
A cursory examination of the facts reveals that hospitalisations are down, deaths are down and, by Wednesday, the were 568 reported cases of omicron in the United Kingdom. The World Health Organisation reports zero deaths from this new variant.
Professor Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer, states that “informal data” from South Africa suggest hospitalisations “up around about 300 per cent”. The South African National Institute for Communicable Diseases reported a rise in daily admissions of 374 people on December 8.
So the Covid measures are not “proportionate and responsible”. They are a disguised vaccination push, or a political “dead cat” distraction, or show that No 10 has an alarming mutation report that it is not willing to share with the public.
Alan Nowers
Irvine, California, United States
SIR – At an estimated £8 billion for the hospitality industry alone, this is the most expensive dead cat in history. Maria Mcgee
Culmore, Co Londonderry
SIR – I find it chilling that the Government has, without much real debate, secured for itself the powers to expand or restrict our basic freedoms on a whim whenever it so chooses.
It has done virtually nothing to improve NHS capacity or performance since it dismantled the Nightingale facilities, and is now so terrified of the (always) apocalyptic predictions from its puppet masters in Sage that it cannot wait three weeks to see if omicron translates into hospitalisations or deaths. So far the signs look as though it will not.
Yet the Government’s chosen route is to treat liberty as if it were an unimportant trinket to be taken away or granted at its will. Maybe it needed a distraction after this week’s headlines.
I will never vote for this Government again, although goodness knows where I will find any competent replacement.
Mark Treasure
Horley, Surrey
SIR – I could not believe my ears. Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary, said twice yesterday morning that mandatory vaccination would be “unethical”.
Is it then more ethical to allow unvaccinated people to infect others, take up hospital beds, be treated at public expense and delay the end of this miserable epidemic which ruins so many businesses and lives? Elizabeth Fox
Hayfield, Derbyshire
SIR – I was surprised to hear the PM say we might to have a conversation about mandatory vaccination. This country has an extremely high Covid vaccine takeup. I myself have had three jabs.
Talk of making people take the vaccine is un-british and wrong. This is still a free country, just.
The numbers show that most people will have a jab if there is a good reason, rather than being told to do so. We don’t want to go anywhere near the measures being considered by the EU, and Germany in particular.
Graham Mitchell
Haslemere, Surrey
SIR – I have had Covid and am triplejabbed. What was the point?
Ian Rennardson
Tunbridge Wells, Kent
SIR – It was hard to believe it possible to be any angrier with this Government. But I am now.
This Government is not trying to protect me, but is slowly trying to destroy me. Nudges, restrictions, impositions, hypocrisy, suppression of evidence – all lead us to a dark place.
It is about time that MPS stopped supporting these impositions on our lives and let us return to normality. I will not accept any further restrictions. Alan Billingsley
Whitworth, Lancashire
SIR – Is anyone in the Civil Service not already working from home?
Bill Todd
Twickenham, Middlesex
SIR – Should supermarket and pharmacy staff work from home? Mervyn Hodkinson Bournemouth, Dorset
SIR – Did the Democratic National Committee have to have had its headquarters in a building, the name of which ended in -gate?
Alistair Mackay
Dunoon, Argyll
SIR – Last year Boris Johnson announced that we could go out but we couldn’t go out out. This year he has just announced that we can go out out but we can’t go out to work.
I am already looking forward to next year’s announcement.
Charlotte Mackay
Shaftesbury, Dorset