Sajid Javid wants us to ‘live with Covid’ instead of delay ‘freedom’ – so much for following data not dates

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The award of the George Cross to the NHS is a transparently and sickeningly cynical ploy to distract attention from the insultingly derisory 1 per cent pay increase being insisted on by our contemptible government.

Our brand new health secretary is now following the example of Donald Trump in claiming that Covid is just like flu, and emboldening Boris Johnson to tell us that we will just have to learn to live with it.

One can only presume that the cunning plan must be to award the NHS a bar to its George Cross after our understaffed (thanks Brexit) and underpaid (thanks Tories) health service that workers have struggled through, and one can only hope survived, the swelling fourth wave of this pandemic.

So much for following the data, not the dates.

D Maughan Brown

York

What a difference a day makes

If I were suddenly made responsible for a country’s health service during a pandemic I would want to learn as much as I could, as quickly as possible, about the team that would be advising me, the team that would be managing the response, the current state of infections, the likely progression, the resources available to treat patients, and the means available to mitigate risk.

I would expect it to take more than a day, so I was surprised that Sajid Javid could grandly announce a major change of direction so soon after taking office. Even more surprised when his pronouncement that the nation would have to “learn to live with Covid” was not supported by any assessment of what the risks were and how individuals could mitigate them.

There is a significant number of unvaccinated vulnerable people and their risk of dying if they catch Covid has not changed. Yet the advice since the beginning of April is that no one needs to shield. The government has decided not to stop a surge of infections in young unvaccinated people but have appeared to have washed their hands of any responsibility to even suggest to the unvaccinated vulnerable people that they keep away from them.

The one thing that does not surprise me is that Boris Johnson should jump on the bandwagon.

Jon Hawksley

France

Rotten fish

Like fish, government rots from the head down. Boris Johnson was a fairly well-known individual before he became prime minister. What we did not realise was that so quickly after he formed his administration senior colleagues would start imitating his reckless attitude to due constitutional process and much else.

In recent days, in connection with the admirable Gareth Southgate, we have seen how important leadership can be in inspiring and setting the tone for a team. Sadly the exact reverse has been true with Johnson’s clique.

The repeated, blatant and uncorrected transgressions of the ministerial code by Priti Patel and others is now common knowledge. The individuals and agencies who are meant to bring offenders to book seem quite powerless – so great is the power of the presidential PM we appear to have.

There is an urgent need for the opposition parties to unite in a campaign for the establishment of a Royal Commission to investigate the way this government has been behaving and recommend a way forward.

The Rev Andrew McLuskey

Ashford, Middlesex

Could he care less?

Every business that is now under threat due to us being outside of our former EU membership ought to be allowed to sue all Brexiteers. Everybody who is going to become seriously ill once all restrictions to control Covid are lifted should sue Boris Johnson, as it would appear he really does not care about you and I.

We have witnessed how he dealt with “get Brexit done”. Now it is, “get Covid out of the way”. Regardless of any expert advice. What does he really think this country is going to be like, say by next spring? Or will he resign his position in the meantime and let some other person try to sort out the utter devastation he has brought upon our country.

Richard Grant

Burley, Ringwood, Hampshire

Ex-pat temptation

John Rentoul suggests, in Mea Culpa, that the hyphenated term “ex-pat” would refer to someone who formerly loved their country, but does so no longer.

We currently have a government that is hostile to asylum seekers, pays only lip service to the climate emergency and is led by an unethical self-serving populist. But less than two years ago it was re-elected, albeit by our undemocratic voting system, with enough votes to give it an 80-seat majority. Notwithstanding the recent by-election results, there must be quite a lot of UK residents who are, very sadly, becoming ex-pats.

Susan Alexander

Frampton Cotterell, South Gloucestershire

Nothing ‘normal’ about the future

There won’t be a great deal that is “normal” about life after the 19th, even if all restrictions are lifted.

It is not possible to come out of a once-in-a-lifetime period of such difficulty and behave as though nothing had happened. Much has changed, forever in some cases, and it simply won’t be possible to return to the “normality” of pre-pandemic life.

There’s working from home or face-to-face appointments with GPs, for example, and what in general will unquestionably be tension between the cautious and the adventurous. Proselytising that individuals should take personal responsibility may, in some cases, be asking too much.

In any event, we shouldn’t be lifting all restrictions on the 19th. It is risk without enough calculation, it is to go once again into a tunnel, albeit one now one with at least a degree of illumination. The vaccines, wonderful as they are, are not the proverbial silver bullet; at least not yet. There are still too many unknown factors. We will have to learn to live with Covid, but it is still too early to lift all restrictions and hope for the best.

Most important, it seems inevitable that doing so will mean that more people will die before their time.

That, it seems, is a price some are willing to pay.

Neil Coppendale

Shoreham-by-Sea