AstraZeneca withdrawing its vaccine could be more dangerous than we think

Letters to the editor: our readers share their views. Please send your letters to letters@independent.co.uk

It is crucial to identify the cause of the vaccine’s side effects and be completely transparent with public (AP)

The fact that AstraZeneca is withdrawing its vaccine after admitting that the vaccine could cause rare injuries should fill us all with fear and bewilderment. This could lead to life threatening repercussions in terms of vaccine hesitancy among the populace.

Vaccine hesitancy has been cited by the WHO as one of the top global health threats. It could cause deaths and increased hospitalisations, especially amongst the most vulnerable and impoverished segments of the population. To avoid devastating infectious disease outbreaks, it is crucial to identify the cause of the vaccine’s side effects and be completely transparent with public. We cannot allow one issue to further people’s hesitancy about taking vaccines; only then can we work towards a complete and holistic immunisation coverage of the population.

Dr Munjed Farid Al Qutob

London

Is this the masterplan?

Rishi Sunak says he has a plan and Labour haven’t...

I would suggest the following as a starter:

Firstly, dealing with the NHS. The Conservatives claim to be putting record amounts of money into it. Where is that money going? Clearly not to the front line. We have record waiting lists in hospitals, including casualty departments.

Moreover, NHS dentistry is rapidly becoming non-existent and GP appointments are practically extinct.

More and more people are resorting to paying for private treatment or not being treated at all. Is this a backdoor plan to achieve the Tory dream of abolishing the NHS altogether?

Secondly, state pensions. The Conservatives introduced the triple lock, but it is becoming far too expensive to fund. To cover the costs they are steadily increasing the pension age until it will eventually be so high that the majority of people will never ever receive it.

Is this the plan to buy back votes from today’s pensioners while abolishing the state pension altogether for future generations?

Lastly, disability benefits. We have now learnt that welfare state disability benefits are to be reviewed, with an aim to save even more money. In summary, a plan to make the rich richer and leave the majority with nothing.

Is this the plan Rishi Sunak talks about?

Tony Taylor

York

Can such brutal treatment win an election?

Now that the local election results are in, it is evident that the government is unpopular. However, I gather that, in some quarters, videos of asylum seekers being rounded up and taken away in vans for deportation are thought to have ensured some seats the Tories might otherwise have lost. If the Tories are banking on the publicity surrounding the Rwanda scheme to be their saving grace, then I have two questions:

What sort of society can think it in any way acceptable to drag terrified people out of their homes and bundle them off to a country that our Supreme Court has deemed unsafe? Their only “crime” is to have undertaken an arduous and dangerous journey to seek safety here.

Why would I, or anyone else, want to vote for a government that thinks that this might be the way to win an election? Have we really become a country that prides itself on such brutal treatment of the weak and powerless? Surely, we are better than this.

Harriet Ward

Oxford

Less ‘big tent’, more marquee

Natalie Elphicke’s defection from Tory to Labour has to be the most bizarre and unpredictable parliamentary switch from right to left yet.

While there was noble logic in Tory MP and practising doctor Dan Poulter defecting to Labour over the woeful state of the NHS the previous week, the motives for Elphicke leaving over Sunak’s lamentable record on tackling immigration look decidedly odd. Surely it will be difficult for her to align with Labour’s plan to ditch the Rwanda policy in favour of a more comprehensive, if longer-term plan to tackle the causes of illegal immigration. Or was it simply the most vindictive way to get back at Sunak for bringing down her erstwhile hero Boris Johnson?

Elphicke’s hard Brexit stance and ERG credentials, together with her opposition to the ECHR, will hardly endear her to many of her new party colleagues, who might fear that in enticing similarly disaffected Tories to switch to them Labour risks becoming less of a “big tent” and more of a marquee.

Paul Dolan

Cheshire