Anonymity is granted only at the discretion of the editor, who also reserves the right to edit letters.

Racism and Brexit

Whether Des Morgan (SA, February 28) likes it or not, the fact is that a third of leave voters themselves openly admitted that racism played a significant part in their decision to vote leave.

Again, whether he likes it or not, when asked to disclose information regarding sensitive subjects such as racism, individuals are often inclined to hide the truth from those who ask. This phenomenon, known as socially desirable responding, is widely recognised, and means that the true figure for racism amongst leave voters is higher than the self-admitted 34 per cent.

In addition, one really must question the understanding of the concept of racism amongst leave voters for many reasons, including that many leave voters continue to make false statements about immigrants and immigration in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, meaning the true figure for racism amongst leave voters is even higher.

Furthermore, other leave supporters often attempt to defend racism and Islamophobia (which is recognised by many to be a form of racism) by twisting the meaning of words spoken by others, including senior politicians such as Boris Johnson, out of all recognition in a desperate attempt to deceive themselves and others about their support for racists or racism.

Mr Morgan is quick to denigrate those of us who have been lucky enough to benefit from a good education.

However you do not need a good education to know that racism is wrong, you do not need a good education to know that twisting the words of others for any reason is wrong, let alone in a desperate attempt to deny racism or Islamophobia, and you do not need a good education to know that it is wrong to make false statements such as denying that the UK played a leading and central role at the heart of the EU for the last 40 years!

Dr Adam Poole, Savill Crescent, Wroughton

Spread of coronavirus

It really concerns and annoys me when I hear scaremongering reports of the total number of cases in this country who have contracted coronavirus.

Surely each day there are a huge number of persons who have already contracted the virus (and have been counted) but are now recovered, so the total number of reported cases should take in to consideration a minus number of those who presumably have had and recovered. Simply to add up the total number of cases reported since the first reported case does not give a fair reflection on the situation at today’s date, only a running total.

Maybe only the number of patients who are hospitalised should be reported. There are bound to be many persons who have the infection but who feel it unnecessary, to report it .

I also do not understand why no one has mentioned that the air conditioning on the cruise liner could most probably have been responsible for spreading the virus so widely where people on board had to breathe the probably contaminated circulated air. It is well known that aircraft cabin air conditioning is notoriously infected as it circulates during a flight.

To my mind I feel that confining a huge number of persons together does nothing to alleviate the spread of the virus, exacerbates its transmission. Let’s hope that in our country we do not experience any of the extremely distressing scenes we saw coming out of China. Also, since the warning signs of the spread of the virus there has not been one packet of medicated tissues or a container of hand gel to be bought. I flagged this up with Sainsbury’s months ago. The country should have been stocked up.

Jayne Gould, By email