Coronavirus death rates will prove that Britain is as unequal as ever

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How the other half live: wealthy areas will likely have less deaths (fstop123 istockphoto)

Covid-19 shows that “levelling up” is just another Boris Johnson soundbite. And I’m not just talking about the luxurious conditions for the wealthy self-isolators.

At the end of this, there will be a clear distinction in death rates between those countries with competent governments and properly funded healthcare and the rest. In the UK, there will be a clear distinction between wealthy areas, and those blighted by a decade of Tory austerity.

Amanda Baker
Edinburgh

Test, test, test

The government’s approach to Coronavirus testing is shambolic – and will result in thousands of unnecessary deaths. The key to beating this virus is testing and contact tracing – as the Koreans have definitively proven (without a lockdown) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) has been urging. Weeks ago we were promised testing would be massively ramped up, yet we manage a paltry 8,000 a day, compared with Germany’s 70,000. Asked why the government wasn’t following the WHO guidelines to “test, test, test”, deputy chief medical officer Jennifer Harries said our long-developed health system didn’t require the globally recommended approach.

In 2016, Operation Cygnus – the pandemic virus drill – revealed there would be a lack of ventilators and personal protective equipment (PPE). The health secretary at the time, Jeremy Hunt, overruled recommendations from that drill on cost grounds, leaving our current capability (again) woefully below WHO guidelines. We have half the doctors per head of Italy and Spain and one fifth the intensive care beds of Germany. In fact, after a decade of underfunding, our NHS has some of the poorest critical care per head in the developed world but ironically we also have dozens of molecular testing labs left idle. This is as much about management as it is about resources – but tragically we appear to have neither.

Stefan Wickham
Oxted, Surrey

No heroes

As a recently retired, and possibly soon-to-be-recalled NHS consultant, I am not at all surprised to hear of the attempts by management to silence those frontline staff highlighting the failure of the government to provide the resources needed to safely treat patients in the current coronavirus crisis. Calling them “heroes” and asking for clapping sessions does not make up for lack of PPE or intensive care beds.

There is a long and ignoble history of suppression of whistleblowers in the NHS. Meanwhile, we have a government which has not only failed to implement the recommendations from planning exercises about such pandemics, but actively rejected them.

They have characterised the crisis as a “war” and revel in using military terminology. They may see the health workers who needlessly lose their lives as “cannon fodder” or “collateral damage”, but I sincerely hope that the rest of us will not, and once the crisis is over, there will be a reckoning.

Mike Margetts
Kilsby, Northamptonshire

The government has so far retained the confidence of the public by being open and forthright about progress in countering coronavirus. NHS administrators who attempt to silence frontline staff should be named and shamed.

Martin Rayner​​
Windermere, Cumbria

Follow my lead?

If you have a dog and live in a densely populated area, it would make sense to put your dog in your car and drive him to a nearby open space where you can stay further away from people than if you walked from home. And if you did that two, three or even four times a day, you’d hardly be posing a great Covid-19 risk to anyone, would you?

Susan Alexander
Frampton Cotterell​, South Gloucestershire

Football’s greed

The news that extremely wealthy football clubs are to furlough non-playing staff is reprehensible especially when overpaid players, coaches and managers will remain on full pay. This was meant to help prevent businesses from going under, not to supplement the coffers and inflated staff of these organisations.

Geoff Forward
Stirling, Scotland