With ‘freedom day’ must come a review into the handling of Covid

Now that freedom day is within sight following the government’s transfer of responsibility for Covid to the people, the distractions of the day-to-day management of the situation will be removed for the ministers involved.

There can therefore be no objection to starting the review of the handling of the Covid situation, which the government has so skilfully avoided to date.

Richard Elliott

Marlow

Deaths as a result of Covid are down. Excellent. Hospitalisations due to Covid are down. Great. But there is still testing to be administered, overloaded laboratories and new variants to be faced. There are still people who should be isolating who are, shamefully, still not paid to do so. And long Covid cases seem not to be counted or assessed, even though they will impact hugely on the economy. Then, there is an exhausted NHS dealing with all the unmet healthcare and social care needs that have accrued over the past 18 months.

Alongside this, I’m told, “I’m tired of wearing a mask,” (I’m not) and “I’m tired of restrictions on my freedoms” (which may result in my staying alive or not having long Covid – no way!). Where on earth is the sense of balance?

We’re headed for another wave that may not overwhelm the NHS but will surely affect the younger population and, therefore, the economy. Then, of course, we have no idea of the efficacy of the currently available vaccines or the potential emergence of new variants. Lambda, anyone? And doesn’t everyone know someone who has received two vaccinations yet has still tested positive for Covid?

This virus is not remotely like the flu, health secretary. Saying it does not make it so. I am very angry at the casual approach being taken by the government to a health crisis that is by no means over.

Beryl Wall

London

In response to the article, UK warned not to replicate Australia’s “dark and bloody chapter” on asylum – offshore processing was reinstituted by prime minister Julia Gillard in 2012.

Under my subsequent government, we removed the risk of indefinite detention through a policy of regional resettlement whereby asylum-seekers who arrived by boat after July 2013 would be resettled in third countries such as New Zealand. Papua New Guinea also agreed to process and resettle refugees under a one-year programme, withdrawing its reservations to the Refugee Convention which would otherwise be impossible for the proper welfare of asylum-seekers.

At the same time, we boosted Australia’s humanitarian intake to 20,000 refugees a year from the UN refugee agency, moving towards an intake of 27,000 in subsequent years. By comparison, the intake is now is only 13,750 under the conservatives.

After my Labour government was defeated in September 2013, conservative prime minister Tony Abbott and his immigration minister Scott Morrison sabotaged regional resettlement by taking resettlement in New Zealand off the table. In an act of performative cruelty, they resorted to indefinite detention, which is as immoral as it is illegal. Scott Morrison, who is now prime minister, should have brought anyone caught in this legal limbo to Australia many years ago.

Kevin Rudd

Former prime minister of Australia

The greatest honour an Olympic competitor can have is to stand on the winner’s platform as their country’s national anthem blasts out, unless of course they are Russian. Russia has been banned and thus can’t compete unless they become citizens of another country and some actually are dual citizens or they compete under the title of the Russian Olympic Committee, as a representative of the Olympic committee itself. This is not right nor fair.

Stay home and fix your country’s sporting system.

Dennis Fitzgerald

Melbourne

Over the past 18 months, the government has spent an awful lot of money, not always wisely, dealing with the health and economic aspects of the Covid pandemic. Long Covid and the people suffering from it have been woefully neglected. We need to understand how it occurs and how best to treat it. We also need to give better help to people living with the condition. There are already tens/hundreds of thousands of cases out there. That number is going to go through the roof when we have 100,000 new cases of Covid a day. The government must move long Covid to the top of its priority list.

John E Harrison

Lancashire