Let public decide on accepting Covid risks in exchange for return to normality

As someone who has booked a holiday abroad, it was with much frustration – and no little despair – that I heard about the UK government’s “decisive” blanket quarantine for holiday makers in Spain.

The rationale for this was a sharp increase in the incidence of cases – but significantly not an increase in deaths – in certain parts of Spain, where the rate varies from about one in 400 in the most infected parts to about one in 12,000 in the Balearic Islands.

Effectively, therefore, if you are in a town of 12,000 people in the Balearics on average, one person will be infected!

Now I understand that cases could increase and that some people will travel between high and low infected parts of the country, but at the rates that currently apply there is a minimal chance that someone holidaying in the Balearics will even catch the virus, let alone cause a second “spike” in hospitalisations or deaths in the UK – assuming precautionary measures continue to apply, particularly for old and vulnerable people.

So the rationale justifying such a draconian step is beyond me, especially when you consider the misery and huge financial/economic consequences of the quarantine – both here and in Spain.

Which brings me to my main point, namely that none of the

UK governments have a mandate on how they should handle the pandemic. This was not an election issue and no-one was voted in on the basis that they apply what many people feel are overly restrictive and costly measures. The public should now be allowed a say rather than being constantly told what to do.

This will need clear communication – something that has rarely happened to date – outlining exactly how the pandemic works, who it affects (less than one in 100,000 people have died under age 45 in the UK), and what the full ramifications are of maintaining or easing the lockdown, taking into account not only the likely number of Covid-19 cases, but also the potential increase in immunity from these cases and the cost of the lockdown measures in terms of additional deaths (suicides, delays in cancer treatments etc), people’s mental and physical health and the huge financial and economic repercussions.

The public can then make an informed decision on whether it is worth accepting some of the risks in exchange for getting back to some normality and not leave it to governments to take “decisive” actions based purely on the number of cases.

ANDY SCOTT Newhalls Road, South Queensferry