Could I add to Nesrine Malik’s excellent article (10,000 UK coronavirus deaths: don’t forget that this was preventable, 12 April) that in one respect at least, the attempts to make this analogous to a war is correct because the first casualty has been truth. Not only are we subjected to meaningless statistics on everything, including the numbers of dead, which it now transpires only include those in hospital, but the government’s fallback position to justify its policy is a parroted “we have followed the scientists’ and medical advice”, which is also nonsense. Those scientists and medical advisers could only make proposals based on the situation as it was presented to them, ie with no provision for even minimal testing and an NHS totally lacking adequate manpower, facilities and equipment.
Frances Alderson
London
• Nesrine Malik is right to remind us that Italy urged the UK to learn from its mistakes over Covid-19, but we did not, and now more than 10,000 people have died. Italy also warned about the risks to residents in care homes. Up to a thousand people and some of their carers may have died and we are still not even including them in the daily death toll. Bin liners and woolly gloves are the only protection some staff have, as they inadvertently spread the infection from one resident to another.
It is beyond comprehension that only deaths in hospitals are being reported on a daily basis and that it is beyond the Department of Health to collect the same data from care homes. Why do these residents and their carers not matter?
John Beer
Chair, Hourglass
• Nesrine Malik is quite right: many of these deaths were avoidable. What is happening now is that another myth is being created to match the myths of “Labour’s mess” and “the will of the people”.
This time, it is that of the government bravely battling the invisible enemy, with the charge led by an intrepid prime minister taking on the enemy in person. This myth creation serves to distract attention from reality, which is a fundamental lack of governing competence. What is needed is not heroics and vainglorious appeals to patriotic struggle, but surgical masks, protective clothing, sufficient equipment and, probably above all, careful advance planning for potentially catastrophic events.
Myths, once established, are almost impossible to shift. This one needs weeding out before it has chance to put down roots. The government must not be allowed to avoid its responsibility for this crisis. Accountability is essential.
Roy Boffy
Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands
• A brilliant article by Nesrine Malik. We become numbed to the horrendous figures of deaths dispensed daily. The government continues to insist that “millions” of items of PPE are being delivered. Doctors and nurses respond with equal vehemence, saying the equipment is not arriving. Will Boris Johnson’s effusive thanks to the nursing staff possibly translate into adequate funding?
Terence Padden
Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire
• Our politicians are using tub-thumping bellicose language about “the war” on coronavirus, as though it is a battle that can be won, and the virus sent packing. But coronavirus is here to stay. This is not a war. It is a symbiosis. We have to adapt.
David Hildick-Smith
Professor of cardiology, Brighton and Sussex University hospitals
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