No one ‘needs’ a holiday abroad – let’s not throw all our hard work away

Please send your letters to letters@independent.co.uk

‘What is the point of foreign holidays being allowed after 17 May when many European countries are so far behind the UK with vaccine doses?’ (Getty)

Lockdown should not be eased until everyone of all ages – the over-20s, over-30s and over-40s – have had their first vaccine and all the over-50s have had their second dose.

Shops and hospitality to open, yes, with distancing and masks but what is the point of foreign holidays being allowed after 17 May when many European countries are so far behind the UK with vaccine doses? We would be letting people go abroad for holidays, who would then come back to the UK with Covid-19 and potentially pass it onto more Britons, leading to a third wave of the virus.

Only staycations should be allowed this year. Most people would love to have a vacation abroad this year but people saying it is a “need” is ridiculous. I want to go abroad this year but I have transferred it to next year. It is not an “essential” or a “need”.

Let us eradicate Covid once and for all. We have come so far with this pandemic, why spoil it? Let’s wait until early autumn when most of the UK vaccinations have taken place.

Why undo all the hard work?

Wendy Clifford

Address supplied

Forgotten city

I would like to thank you for Colin Drury’s article identifying the challenges which Birmingham is currently facing (A city on the brink? Birmingham facing ‘disaster’ as unemployment hits levels not seen since Eighties, 21 March).

However, in addition to the problems discussed in the article, there is the age-old problem of our friends at the BBC. For the last 10 years, the corporation has walked away from the Midlands. Despite the area, by virtue of population numbers, contributing around 25 per cent of the licence revenue, it currently receives just 2.8 per cent of regional spend.

The average spend is around 2 per cent when compared with our luckier northern neighbours (around 18 per cent), which perhaps explains why Birmingham and the region is rarely seen or heard.

I have perceived the balance of programming, especially in news items on the Today programme, to be heavily focused on the north to the detriment of the central region. There seems intention on the corporation’s behalf to champion the north as the main beneficiary of the “levelling up” agenda, while I believe the spread of need and deprivation lies across a variety of areas.

Thank you for at least drawing attention to the problems, so that we may not be totally overlooked.

Susan Bertram

Address supplied

Must be a better way

John Rentoul’s report on different voting systems used in the UK (Your guide to the different voting systems on 6 May, 29 March) is an interesting one. The Scottish parliament and Welsh assembly systems have a certain appeal with the “added members” chosen to provide a measure of proportional representation. But the centralised control of party lists for added members adds a whiff of “it’s who you know” that some find distasteful.

Would it not be possible to operate a “dynamic added member” list, where the list is self-chosen from the second (and third?) placed candidates in constituencies, ranked according to the percentage of the local vote they can secure?

Read more:

• Priti Patel doesn’t like my tone, apparently – or is it the facts that worry her?
• Rape culture at private schools isn’t about to change – parents are paying for this sense of entitlement
• As lockdown eases, I’m planning the event of the year – a disco for boomers

They have submitted themselves to the scrutiny of at least the local electorate; often their failure to get elected says more about the popularity or party of the winning first choice than their own ability. A second-placed candidate with 49 per cent of the local vote will secure more “real” votes than many winning candidates where there are three- and four-way splits. A five per cent threshold could be applied to prevent abuse by the likes of the Monster Raving Loonies, etc.

Dr John Bailey

Preston

Labour’s righteous wrath

With Labour dropping in the polls, everyone seems to be asking what can be missing from their public image. Read Jess Phillips’s deeply felt and near-despairing article (Priti Patel doesn’t like my tone, apparently – or is it the facts that worry her?, 28 March) and you have the answer. Anger at injustice. Righteous wrath. Fire! What’s the problem? Isn’t there enough fuel?

Noel Chadwick

Cumbria

Vaccine distribution must be worldwide

The global community should avoid a rich-poor divide between the western world and countries of the global south in how coronavirus vaccines are distributed.

Right now, over 30 countries worldwide haven’t injected a single person, while roughly three-quarters of all doses have gone to people in just 10 countries.

Scientists warn that such disparities will not only haunt poorer countries, but will also affect rich ones, as the continued spread of the virus will allow it to mutate in ways that undermine vaccines for years to come.

The toll in Africa could be especially profound. Although the continent has 17 per cent of the world’s people, so far it has administered just 2 per cent of the vaccine doses given globally. Kenya, with one of Africa’s more prosperous economies, estimates that it will inoculate only 30 per cent of its 50 million people by 2023.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) reported last week that the second wave of Covid-19, which began at the end of 2020, has hit African countries more aggressively, with a 30 per cent rise in infections compared to the first wave. In Kenya, positivity rates are over 20 per cent, with 123,000 total reported cases, and 14,000 new cases this month alone.

Although Africa showed some resilience to the disease during last year’s first phase, the WHO warns that rising cases threaten fragile healthcare systems in the region. Healthcare workers are currently bearing the brunt of the pandemic in Africa, with 267 African health workers being infected every day, the WHO report.

Most African countries are relying on Covax, the global mechanism for procuring and distributing vaccines. But with Covax projecting that it will inoculate just 20 per cent of Africa’s population this year, there is a long road ahead if we are to avoid a devastating split between “us” and “them”, with the consequent undermining of the global effort to bring the pandemic under control.

Ray Jordan

CEO of Self Help Africa