MR Bindless in his letter of July 3, ‘Government’s failure on coronavirus’, is absolutely right all points.

From the beginning we all should have been wearing mask respirators. The disease is an airborne respiratory disease. It is impossible to see how that could be made clearer.

Contrary to UK government fob-offs that masks are “unproven”, the clinical evidence goes back decades. Why else would millions in Asia wear masks?

FFP3 masks filter pollen, asbestos dust, and “virus pollen”. Yet even now in UK we are recommended the cheapest of the cheap versions, “face coverings”, when we need respirators.

That we were not issued with such masks, as entire UK city populations were issued gas masks in 1940, is because we did not have and still do not have stocks of PPE equipment for medical staff, let alone masks for the general public.

That we do not have the stocks is, in turn, because we exported long ago this manufacturing infrastructure to China and other Asian countries.

Lockdown on March 23 was then far too late. Government knew very well about the spreading virus in January. All the world medical authorities knew. But then, a matter of fact, Boris Johnson did not attend one Covid-19 emergency COBRA meeting in February.

Virus track and tracing has been close to non-existent. What efforts have been made collapsed in chaos in June.

And add to all this wholesale discharge of 25,000 elderly, with no Covid testing, from hospitals into care homes. And no disinfectant spraying of streets, especially bus stops, All that we saw in Asia months ago, respirator masks, street spraying, not in the UK.

And so we end with Britain’s ranking in the world for mortality rates, per 100,000, top of the world list. Sixty-six mortalities per 100,000 of the population. Higher pro-rata rates than the USA, Brazil, or Belgium. Total UK mortalities from the virus 44,000 and counting.

Monumental failure on the part of UK government. Devastating consequences for so many tens of thousands. And not just headline mortality but, for many, infected serious long-term consequences.

JEFF WILLIAMS

Jubilee Road, Parkstone