THE Government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, including its latest national “threat level” lockdown regime, is certainly open to criticism.

Many of the Government’s measures appear illogical, and they are unable or unwilling to explain the rationale (if any) behind their decisions, which hardly inspires confidence that they know what they are doing.

However, some of those who object to these measures, and Keith Starmer’s call for a “circuit breaker”, recommend allowing the pandemic to run its course, thus leading to the development of “herd immunity”, which they argue will eventually bring it under control. Unfortunately, like the flu virus, the coronavirus mutates, and there have now been a number of well documented cases of people catching the virus for a second time (which can be worse than the first).

Thus I fear that “herd immunity” is an illusion, and given that the coronavirus is more lethal than the flu (at least these days), there is no realistic alternative to sensible restrictive lockdown measures until such time as an effective vaccine is developed.

Alan Jordan, Middridge.