The proposal of Prof Sunetra Gupta and others, in the Great Barrington declaration, that the vulnerable should be shielded from Covid-19 while the rest of the population develops herd immunity would be more persuasive if the vulnerable could be confident that they would be looked after (Scientists call for Covid herd immunity strategy for young, 6 October).
For the sake of a family member with underlying health issues, we experienced a fairly strict lockdown earlier in the year. For weeks we tried to obtain supermarket delivery slots and failed. No volunteers from community associations or emissaries from the government ever knocked on our door or put a leaflet through our letterbox offering to help.
Kind relatives and neighbours helped until click and collect became available, but no organisation reached out to us. Our Scottish and Westminster MPs expressed solidarity, but could do nothing to help. The feeling of having been left to fend for ourselves wore away at our morale. Meanwhile, health appointments were cancelled and have not been reinstated.
Watching the troubles of the test-and-trace system has not reassured us. Is there any reason to believe that things would be better next time?
Susan Tomes
Edinburgh
• If four in five with Covid-19 show no symptoms (Covid: more than 80% of positive UK cases in study had no core symptoms, 8 October) and “silent transmission” may well become the norm, then the Great Barrington declaration is worth further consideration, with the caveat that those who do not have capacity should be protected by shielding and maximum support. The rest of us are capable of weighing up the risks for ourselves, our own family and social networks about what and where feels safe and acknowledge that we all have our own risk temperature scale.
If protection ultimately boils down to “hands, face, space” then we can all make sensible decisions about individual and family protection. It seems likely that we are going to have to live alongside this illness for the foreseeable future, and it will have to become part of everyday risk-taking and decision-making.
Some people choose not to drive at night – they feel unsafe and a potential risk to others, so don’t, and this is largely accepted and understood. Covid-19 may have to merit the same respect and understanding for us all to move on to a new normality.
Dr Kate Latham
Newquay, Cornwall
• Given the enormous rise in the number of infections in the north of England, the government’s slow response, and that “fringe” anti-lockdown epidemiologists are gaining influence (Planned new Covid rules for north of England are not enough, say scientists, 8 October), could it be that the government is using the north as an experiment in herd immunity?
Denis O’Connor
Otley, West Yorkshire
• It is entirely legitimate to conduct a scientific debate about the merits of a herd immunity approach to the resolution of the Covid-19 pandemic, as advanced by the Great Barrington declaration, signed by over 4,000 medical and public health practitioners.
However, it is less wise for this to be done under the auspices of such an organisation as the American Institute for Economic Research, and for the declaration’s originators to be photographed smiling in its well-manicured grounds. This is an organisation which, on its website, complains that “the ideologies of socialism and centralisation are alive and well today”, and argues for “limited government and sound money”. I think we all know where they stand on the political spectrum.
All signatories would be well advised to read the excellent book Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway, which details many instances – from the effects of smoking to ozone depletion and global warming – where rightwing US thinktanks have harnessed naive scientists to their ideologically driven cause.
Ian Harvey
Emeritus professor of public health, University of East Anglia
