IS POLICY HERD IMMUNITY?

Today's death toll has made it quite clear to me what the Government plan is and always has been herd immunity. This has left me outraged, people reading this letter might come to the same conclusion.

Many readers may not remember the beginning of this pandemic in the UK, there was talk at the time of the Government being in favour of herd immunity.

It was said the best course action was for the population as a whole, was to catch it. The reason behind this idea was simple, due to fact there was no vaccine. Anyone who caught it would become immune.

However, there were a number of MPs who had concerns to this idea. The main reason being, it was said by leading scientists that at least one to two per cent of the population would succumb and die. Well one per cent of 66 million that equates to 600,000 people, two per cent equals 1.2 million.

There was no way they were going to support that. Then there was a shift in Government policy, they talked about keeping the vulnerable people locked away. Then they implemented a so called lockdown. They introduced social distancing.

Scientists have said openly that for herd immunity to work 60 per cent of the population must get it.

The next thing they introduced steps to keeping the vulnerable out the way so if anyone were to get it would most probably be the youngsters and so called healthier people. So if a second wave was to occur this lot will be immune. Well we have now seen the outcome of that, it’s clear to me that the Government has secretly gone down the herd route.

I have researched many pandemics on You-tube from the Spanish flu in 1918 to Ebola, Swine flu and others. The striking thing is most have been beaten by simply keeping people in their homes for a period of time and the virus dies out on its own.

So why have we not gone down this route? Simon Clarke a microbiologist from Reading University, who appears on Sky TV to answer questions from the public on Coronavirus. He made it quite clear that if we all stayed home for about 3 to 4 weeks this virus would die out naturally. Then we could get back normal. So for heaven sake, why have we not done it?

It's been speculated the deaths rate could end up with a minimum death toll of at least 50,000. Today, they are saying this could go on for months? The vulnerable locked away for longer. What is going on?

If you notice, that at every briefing, all they ever say is we must SLOW the spread. Surely you must stop the spread; therefore you will stop transmission, which stops infections, which in turn stops hospitalization.

This social distancing is I believe a ploy. It allows people to spread it slowly, so this allows the herd immunity theory to take place.

I can’t sit back seeing the death toll keep rising, every country has taken draconian steps to try and stamp this virus out, However, the UK Government has taken a different approach why?

Perhaps, this is the reason we ended with not enough ventilators, masks and PPE. They believed, keeping the vulnerable people out the way, so as to let the young and middle age group get it, in the hope they would have a mild cases and the need for all this essential equipment would be small.

I'm convinced this Government is operating a herd policy

Allan Woodham

West View

Nythe

ALL LIVES MATTER

It’s good news that the Health Secretary has announced that families of staff who die from coronavirus in the course of their essential frontline work will receive a £60,000 payment.

I am also pleased he has said nothing replaces the loss of a loved onebut we want do everything we can to help these families dealing with grief.

Perhaps he would like to announce a special funeral grant to be paid to the relatives of those who have died as a result of contracting coronavirus, or does he think that their loss is any less?

Des Morgan

Caraway Drive

Swindon