I heartily endorse what William Hanage says about herd immunity and the dubious uses to which this concept is sometimes put (From ‘herd immunity’ to today, Covid minimisers are still sabotaging our pandemic progress, 29 March). As he suggests, we need a sustainable strategy for Covid, rather than a pretence that the epidemic has somehow ended. Historical parallels are never exact, but previous experience of other epidemic and endemic diseases would indicate the same.
One minor point: Prince Albert’s death was attributed to typhoid, not cholera. This is worth pointing out, because cholera tends to hog the 19th-century limelight, whereas it is possible to argue that typhoid, another waterborne disease, was at least as important both as a cause of death and as a factor in sanitarian reform.
Margaret Pelling
Oxford
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