Editor

The prime minister is increasingly looking weak and indecisive. Stephen Glover wrote in the Daily Mail, that “every significant new measure has had to be wrung from Boris Johnson, and then it is too late!”

Promises are made and then ignored. Protective equipment and clothing for frontline NHS staff has been promised for weeks. Staff have become infected and the NHS damaged because of the lack of this equipment.

Whilst the government becomes ever more authoritarian in its attempt to control the coronavirus, they ignore the key World Health Organisation recommendation, to substantially increasing testing for the virus. The government has been promising more coronavirus testing for months. Only now, in the midst of the totally predictable health crisis, are they promising to buy millions of tests. Yet they are still talking of weeks before testing 25,000 a day.

Jeremy Hunt, the highly experienced former health secretary has warned that “lack of testing means we have lost track of the virus”. We don’t know who has the virus or where the next outbreak will appear. No testing has been done outside of hospital since 13 March!

Countries which have been more successful in achieving control in this virus, Germany, (with a far lower death rate than Britain), and South Korea, both have much higher levels of testing. They are even employing drive-through testing for the virus, to speed up the process. South Korea routinely tests 20,000 people a day.

Increased testing would show the British people the government is deeply concerned about the situation and taking action. Instead we just get lectures and recommendations.

Now an unproven prototype from Brexit supporter, James Dyson is welcomed, (10,000) yet the earlier offer of 5,000 from an established British firm was ignored!

A successful coronavirus strategy involves testing, quarantining positive cases and tracing of their contacts, and then isolating those contacts in turn.

It is simple and straightforward. Other countries are doing this and protecting their precious health staff with protective clothing. Why aren’t we?

Andrew Milroy Trowbridge Wiltshire

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