Coronavirus isolation for elderly is far too long

I AM writing regarding the Government’s proposal that all people over 70 (and younger people with serious health issues) are being expected to self-isolate for possibly 12-14 weeks. I find this prospect daunting and counterproductive.

Whilst I am aware of the seriousness of the situation and conscious of the impact of a pandemic on the populace and on the NHS, I am also aware of the negative impact on my current good health of such a long period without outside exercise, fresh air or meaningful, albeit limited, social contact.

I cannot see myself or many of my friends obeying this restriction for such a long period, especially if we are not displaying any symptoms. A shorter period of one to two weeks? Yes, I would agree with that.

Neither can I appreciate how this is helping the population in general. I understand that we have to contain the spread of this virus, but am also aware that we need to build up ‘community immunity’ to it. This proposal doesn’t help.

Could the Prime Minister and the Health Secretary consider a more sensible, humane and practical way forward, such as that which is being proposed by the Scottish Health Secretary?

From: Dick Lindley, Altofts, Normanton.

THE ghastly nightmare of the coronavirus outbreak, and its rapid spread around the world, has highlighted the extreme dangers of globalisation.

The food we import, the medicines we import and the enormous amount of manufactured products we buy from abroad are now in danger of disappearing.

We have destroyed a significant amount of our agricultural industry by insisting that our farmers put valuable food producing land into ‘set aside’ areas, where our farmers are forbidden from producing food and have to leave these huge 
areas as overgrown refuges for wildlife.

In the meantime, we are busily importing food from all over the world rather than growing all our temperate foodstuffs here, as we did during the Second World War.

Our reliance on foreign countries for food is going to be made even more dangerous, when, as a result of climate change hysteria, much of our invaluable food producing land is going to be given over to the planting of millions of trees to satisfy the new craze for carbon capture.

This latest pandemic confirms the extreme danger for the British people of relying of other countries to provide our many needs.

Self-sufficiency should be the new buzz word today rather than yesterday’s call for globalisation.

From: David Horncastle, Birkdale Close, Bessacarr, Doncaster.

WHILST I always read Christa Ackroyd’s columns with interest, I have to take issue with her recent defence of how the news about the coronavirus is being handled by the media (The Yorkshire Post, March 14).

I agree that the facts must be presented to the public as matter of urgency, but it is how this information is presented which concerns me. I could give many examples but one will suffice. The other day, the number of deaths from the virus was announced ‘to have doubled from 10 to 20’. There are other ways in which this could have been conveyed without being so dramatic. It is this kind of presentation which spreads alarm and triggers buying frenzies in supermarkets.

My advice to the media is ‘Give us the facts without embellishment’ and remember what my generation did during the Second World War, which was ‘Keep calm and carry on’.

From: Jerry Diccox, Main Street, Darley.

AIRLINES have grown rich thanks to decades of growth in demand for flying, generous tax breaks and favourable government policy.

Now that demand has plummeted in the wake of the coronavirus epidemic, they expect to be bailed out, and of course, they will be.

It is an odd definition of “free market economics” when companies can behave this way – surely they should have put some of their enormous profits aside to get them through the downturn, instead of expecting the taxpayer to keep them afloat?

From; Hilary Andrews, Nursery Lane, Leeds.

ISN’T it interesting how most of our news is taken up with coronavirus? Could it be because the South East, mostly London, has more cases than us up North?

Meanwhile the Government will inevitably advise all those over 75 years to stay indoors as much as possible. What a time to make them all start paying for their TV licences.

From: John Eoin Douglas, Spey Terrace, Edinburgh.

IT is becoming increasingly obvious that the Government cares little for the health and welfare of its older citizens. Its advice on safe distances from others during the COVID-19 epidemic is quoted only in metric units which do not sit naturally with many of us.

At first reading, 2m to me is two miles which is impractical for all than the most rural dweller and, even when I get past that initial misunderstanding, I find it difficult to conceptualise what two metres actually means.

This follows on from this winter’s irresponsible abandonment of imperial measures by BBC meteorologists. I wonder how many deaths could be avoided if both systems of measurement were shown?