Nothing about the government’s approach to the test, track and trace system is ‘well prepared’

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On 2 March the prime minister said that “this country is very very well prepared ... with a fantastic testing system, amazing surveillance of the spread of the disease”. We now know that little had been learnt from earlier warnings and that our tracking and tracing would be abandoned until three months later. We are being spun lines of UK exceptionalism, fed rhetoric about being “world class” when all we need is to learn from and work with others.

In order to cloak these outrageous distortions and the unacceptable actions of Dominic Cummings, the electorate is being thrown scraps to hide the terrible truth: that we are on the edge of an even worse public health disaster than the one our execrable leadership has bequeathed us already.

Without an effective test-track-trace system, we cannot know where the virus hot spots are and isolate it before its inexorable spread. That system is not in place and the much-vaunted app to support it will not be available until the end of June. And yet we are being “eased” into work, school and barbecues without the benefit of a strategic plan.

As far as I’m concerned, Johnson has no experience or understanding of proper planning and is incapable of thinking in such a responsible way. Surely, we should have track and trace securely in place before sending children back to school or loosening checks on social distancing?

We, of course, need to get the economy moving but this must come from a plan that is properly scheduled and not as a result of knee-jerk reactions that cover up the dreadful reality. We are as just as much in danger of a catastrophic spread of the virus as we ever were and we are being led by crowd-pleasing populists who want power without the exercise of proper responsibility. We need careful, considered, honest and open leadership but we are being deceived, presented with distorted information and led over a precipitous cliff-edge by careless opportunists.

Graham Powell
Cirencester, Gloucestershire​

The killing of George Floyd should not be a shock

Instead of asking why George Floyd died, perhaps the question we should be asking is, how did he live this long? The USA is not a nation with a government of the people, by the people, for the people, and it has never in its history believed that all men were created equal; these are but empty words. What we see is a government of bullies, for bullies. It’s the American way and always has been.

Black lives don’t matter because to claim they should is to admit to being powerless, and in a country where only might is right, to be a victim guarantees you are always in the wrong.

When the president’s lies are challenged, he lashes out, and when the police are challenged, the violence seems to escalate.

The killing of George Floyd should not be a shock, it’s not an anomaly. This is a country where even birdwatching is dangerous when you are the wrong colour.

Harlan Wolff
Pattaya, Thailand

The pandemic’s political losers

I read Sean O’Grady’s column “Who are the political winners and losers from coronavirus?” and found myself nodding in agreement at the men and women who have shone in this dire public health episode and the ones who have failed to make their mark or left us incredulous while watching them operate.

To my utter amazement, I actually missed the Piers Morgan-Susanna Reid combo last week despite finding the former shrill and opinionated so often. But he has come into his own and would have ripped into the scandal of Dominic Cummings with gusto.

As to the government, I must admit Rishi Sunak is my winner too, a smooth operator who actually does seem to care about businesses and peoples’ economic welfare. But of course, being a Labour supporter, I am as pleased as punch with Keir Starmer, whose sole deficit is that he lacks charisma. Anyway, Boris Johnson is supposed to be laden with it and look where that has got us this far.

Gift us due diligence, hard work, attention to detail any day of this awful and life-changing pandemic.

Judith A Daniels
Great Yarmouth, Norfolk

Cummings must go

Now that “clap for carers” has finished, I wonder whether the country should start a new routine on Thursdays at 8pm? We could call this “Boo for Boris Johnson”. The prime minister seems to feel that he has drawn a line under the Dominic Cummings affair and that the British people want to move on.

The reality is that people remain outraged at the hypocrisy and ridiculous excuses that he and Cummings have provided us with. Maybe an action like this would convince him that people will not be satisfied until Cummings resigns, or is sacked. We are tired of being treated like idiots who don’t understand simple messages like “stay at home”.

Caroline Costello
Durham

We are not ready to ease lockdown​

I was amazed to learn that the government has gone ahead with easing lockdown and again is risking the lives of all of us, especially key workers, despite several of the scientists on the Sage group believing that this is a high-risk strategy since the R rate is so close to one.

For weeks the government has been telling us it is being led by the science. Obviously not.

The government needs to get ahead of the game with reliable and readily available testing within reach of all. The vast majority of the public, Dominic Cummings excluded, have been observing recommendations. Now our weak prime minister and his clique of senior ministers, and a certain adviser, are willing to jeopardise the lives of all.

Shame on them.

Alison ter Haar
Compton Dando, Somerset

The push from Greg Clark, chair of the Commons Science and Technology Committee, for the government to lower the 2m social distancing rule to a metre and half to help the hospitality sector could inevitably increase the risk of infection with Covid-19. It would make more sense to increase the floor space in which the hospitality sector operates by having more dining places outside on the pavements, in car parks or even temporarily closing roads. Will the government think outside the box to support the hospitality industry?

Kartar Uppal
Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham