IT is often said that the current coronavirus epidemic is unprecedented.

However, I would point to the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918-20 as a precedent (and let us hope and pray that coronavirus does not turn out to be as bad as that was).

Moreover, I have a book called “Plague’s Progress” (by Arno Karlen), first published in 1995, which predicts that epidemics like coronavirus are inevitable.

Thus, although no-one could predict the timing of the current coronavirus epidemic, it is certainly not unprecedented, nor unlikely.

It is one of the duties of governments to prepare contingency plans to cope with all sorts of eventualities, however unlikely they may be.

However, it would appear from our Government’s somewhat disjointed response to the coronavirus, that there were no plans to cope with such an emergency; I wonder why not?

Alan Jordan, Middridge.