When will the public and our government wake up to the fact that we have been landed in this situation (NHS could face ‘horrendous choices’ over who gets coronavirus care, 30 December) because EU and Commonwealth citizens have been made to feel unwanted by Brexit rhetoric, draconian anti-immigration measures and entrenched xenophobia? If we had welcomed people to work here, our Nightingale hospitals could have been staffed and no one would need to ration care.
Jane Ghosh
Bristol
• I see the main reason across the EU for vaccine refusal is fear of side-effects (Spain will register people who refuse Covid vaccine, says health minister, 29 December). Perhaps they forget that the main side-effect of non-vaccination is death.
Michael Miller
Sheffield
• Sorry to deprive Donald Trump of credit for coining “bigly” (Alternative facts, witch-hunt, bigly: the Trump era in 32 words and phrases, 29 December), but in 1872 the great designer and poet William Morris wrote to his friend Aglaia Coronio: “O how I long to keep the world from narrowing on me, and to look at things bigly and kindly.”
Dr Patrick O’Sullivan
Liskeard, Cornwall
• Laura Barton’s article (The resolution I kept, 29 December) resonated strongly with me. During the first lockdown my husband and I each chose a topic every other day and gave a mini lecture. It seemed like a good way to avoid cognitive decline. Subjects ranged from equine dentistry and the history of the saucy seaside postcard to birthing stools and Rupert Bear. No, don’t ask me about the sex life of the anglerfish – I’ve already forgotten.
Joanna Rimmer
Newcastle upon Tyne
• As the English side of the Severn Bridge is in Wessex, should we not call it the Bob Dylan Thomas Hardy bridge (Letters, 29 December)?
Andrew Simms
Bovingdon, Hertfordshire
