Virus inquiry now is too premature – Yorkshire Post Letters

YOU make a powerful argument for an immediate inquiry into the management of the Coronavirus pandemic in the UK (The Yorkshire Post, January 30) so that we can plan ahead.

May I respectfully suggest that the Prime Minister is right and this is not the time to institute this?

We have seen over the year that this virus is like no other we have previously encountered and is able to change rapidly to enable it to infect as many people as possible.

Who knows how it will change in the future and which section of the population it will affect next?

Please let us spend our time trying to get the pandemic under control and then analyse any mistakes that have been made.

The public must also do their part, and everyone should stick to the basic rules to prevent viral spread.

From: Ron Firth, Campsall.

I WOULD suggest that any inquiry on the UK’s conduct of the pandemic be postponed until, hopefully, this brilliant vaccination programme has been fulfilled and the results of it are known.

How can you hold a realistic inquiry at the lowest point (hopefully) in our battle against the pandemic and before the full benefits of the UK’s vaccination can be appreciated fully?

Whilst fault can be found with delays in action on lockdowns, who can you choose who is free from political pressure, knowledgeable and capable of an unbiased judgement?

From: Mrs S Galloway, Stirrup Close, York.

MY support for an early review is unequivocal. In the case of the Salisbury poisonings, the Government tried unsuccessfully to sideline the local public health teams so it would seem that lessons haven’t been learned.

Local councils and public health teams know their patch and should be given every support in these times.

Boris Johnson’s failure to reprimand backbench MP Sir Desmond Swayne for appearing to side with anti-vaxxers is astonishing when it goes completely against what he is telling the public at his briefings.

From: Geoff North, Shakespeare Road, Guiseley.

WHILE I have great respect for The Yorkshire Post’s unbiased and forensic analysis of news, I have to disagree with the demand for an immediate inquiry into the Government’s handling of the Covid pandemic.

Apart from the war years, no government has had to combat such a fast changing catastrophe.

This pandemic has swept through the country at an alarming speed, making it almost impossible to make sound decisions.

Your knee jerk reaction defies common sense.

From: Stuart Twidale, Monk Fryston.

NOW is not the time to have an inquiry. Who, may I ask, would be independent in today’s febrile atmosphere? Only someone from outside the UK, maybe New Zealand who have had a good Covid-19, if such a thing exists.

From: Paul Willetts, Darlington Road, Stockton on Tees.

PERMIT me to quote from another excellent editorial (The Yorkshire Post, January 30) on the topic of home schooling and the inept and contemptible Gavin Williamson:

“They (children) have lost almost a year of learning, in addition to the toll of social isolation on their mental health, and there’s little evidence that Gavin Williamson – or Boris Johnson – grasps this.”

Might I add to this duo the similarly unenlightened GP Taylor, given his recent epistle on the topic of home schooling (The Yorkshire Post, January 27)? Mr Taylor’s blinkered outlook seems to be almost unlimited.

From: John Bolton, Gregory Springs Mount, Mirfield.

I AM in agreement with Christa Ackroyd (The Yorkshire Post, January 30), apart from a few words she used in suggesting groups who could give priority for their jabs to teachers: “Police are by and large not cooped up for hours on end with large groups of people.”

She is right in a sense but should recognise police don’t have much control about who or how many people they may be faced with when dashing to most incidents. All too often they are face to face with hostilities where social distancing has no meaning.

Police are, in my opinion, real front-line, key workers and should be treated as such.

As a grandparent and expectant great grandparent, I would gladly delay my follow-up jab for teachers.

From: John Rayner, North Ferriby.

MY sincere condolences to Paul Morley on the recent death of his elderly relative in a London care home (The Yorkshire Post, January 30). This is just one of sadly far too many individual and personal tragedies over the past year.

Paul relates that she passed away after suffering ‘chest problems’, but received a negative Covid test result earlier that same day. However, the death certificate was marked ‘Covid related’.

This means that the death will be one of over 30,000 counted officially above and beyond those within the recent 100,000 ‘milestone’ of deaths which, as Martin Phillips notes elsewhere on the same page, have occurred within 28 days of a positive Covid test result.

It is instructive that both letters seek to find fault with official statistics, but with opposite reasoning – that the government is seeking to present the situation as worse (including inappropriate deaths) or better (omitting related deaths) than it really is.

What matters is the trend over time, not any one particular datum point. In the trend differentials, the inherent statistical errors should balance out, or at least be reduced to insignificance.

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