Irrational anxieties lay behind lockdown

SIR – Janet Daley (“Let us have a grown-up discussion on the moral trade-offs of lockdown”, Comment, April 19) and Philip Johnston (“The Government had a plan to fight this pandemic – but it lost its nerve”, Comment, April 22) are right to suggest that the lockdown is the result of the fact that our ruling class finds it difficult to deal with death.

I once had a patient who was in remission from schizophrenia and was diagnosed with cancer. Due to the ways in which certain drugs interact, he was soon confronted with the choice of either giving up his treatment with clozapine, which had been very successful in treating his mental illness, in order to start cancer treatment, or to stay on his medication and forgo cancer treatment.

When it was put to him that he could either live longer but risk a relapse or stay well and possibly die sooner, he chose the latter. His medical team felt nothing but admiration for this exceedingly brave decision, and for the composure the patient showed in the face of death.

There are different ways of dealing with psychotic anxieties, and it is clear that, compared to my patient’s entirely rational stance, the idea of locking down an entire country smacks of a desire for omnipotence. Janet Daley and Philip Johnston are right to question the supposedly altruistic motives of our ruling class when dealing with Covid-19.

Dr Giuseppe Spoto

Consultant psychiatrist London SE5