Squeaky-clean IF YOU are wearing a pair of Boris-tinted specs, you may think it is good governance to cancel a five-day Xmas four days before it begins, or shut down schools the day after you just re-opened them.

And it might be okay to amend your failing tier system three weeks after the failure was predictable or take eighteen days to react properly to a new virus strain.

But if you are not wearing Boris-tinted specs, this is all eye-bulging lunacy.

May I share some numbers with you. Epidemiology is all about numbers.

At the start of the first lockdown, Covid mortality across England stood at 730 per week. Today it is 3,300.

Through the first lockdown the virus reproduction number across England fell to R=0.8.

If the virus back then had been 50 percent more transmissible, the first lockdown would not have reduced infection rates with R = 0.8 x 1.5 = 1.2, above one not below.

Even with the vaccine cavalry tooting its trumpet over the hill, we are not in a good place.

We really do need a squeaky-clean lockdown to save a lot of lives.

We need to become the lions led by the crazy donkeys.

DR MARTIN RODGER

Bloxworth Road, Parkstone