A NUMBER of Echo letters have called for less criticism of the government’s efforts in tackling Covid-19 with Ray Simpson insisting we trust them (Letters 24 April).
I cannot agree.
I am pleased to see the government is now getting its thinking cap on straight but, as the acting-Prime Minister now says (Echo, April 23), “We are not out of the woods yet.”
The advice to the UK from the WHO has ever been the same – “ test, test, test”.
It was always very likely that test-and-trace would be the means of ending an economically-damaging lockdown.
Yet the government chose to stop all test-and-trace on March 12 even though such work, while not containing the outbreak, would still save lives as well as test procedures and provide data on the level of Covid-19 infection within the population.
Today the level of infection within the population is “unknowable.”
The size of the test-and-trace capacity required to end lockdown is likewise “unknowable.”
A planned 18,000-strong test-and-trace team is still “weeks away” yet I calculate 18,000 is woefully inadequate as infection rates will fall slowly without adequate test-and-trace.
The delay is unacceptable. The lack of ambition is unacceptable.
Continuing lockdown for want of adequate test-&-trace is daily costing lives, costing the exchequer a fortune and further undermining the national economy.
A speedy and ambitious roll-out of test-and-trace is more urgent than ever. Indeed, it is what is called “a no-brainer”.
DR MARTIN RODGER
Bloxworth Road, Parkstone
Letter to the editor:
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