I think we can all agree that the government strategy for controlling Covid-19 has been less than effective (Revealed: the inside story of the UK’s Covid-19 crisis, 29 April). It is no time to go back to change what was done in early March, but it is time to change what we do now.
What is needed is community and care home testing, on the basis of which we can trace contacts of those who test positive, and take care of all of them – including quarantining and testing – so that the public health authorities and local government units can cope with the anxiety of the local population and keep people safe.
I am asking for a network of those in social care, public and environmental health, and local medical and pharmaceutical services, to join in a community-based approach to controlling Covid-19. I call on the Faculty of Public Health to coordinate this community response force, so that it can receive the widespread support, both financially and in terms of social cohesiveness, that is required for it to be effective.
I am a statistician, psychologist and epidemiologist with broad experience in dealing with epidemics across the world. I was formerly the director of the HIV mitigation programme at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, funded by the Department for International Development, and have my own specialist input to make in this science of controlling epidemics. I ask anyone who has experience and expertise in these fields to join in this reorientation of the strategy for dealing with Covid-19 while we can still make a difference.
Dr David Haran
Wigan
• Your article on the inside story of the coronavirus crisis brought to mind a time when I attended a meeting at the Department of Health some years ago to consider the excess winter deaths that are in part due to cold homes. A representative of the Cabinet Office made it clear that the cost to the state of people dying (predominantly the elderly) was much less than the cost of treating people with cold-related ill-health.
It seems that what was then considered an exceptional view has become the dominant view under this government and in the prime minister’s inner circle. The herd-immunity approach, since denied, was probably seen as cover for this thinking.
Dr Stephen Battersby
Surbiton, London
• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
• Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters
