BY now everyone is heartily sick of the Covid-19 restrictions, and naturally would like to see life and our economy return to something like normal as soon as possible.

At the start of the second national lockdown, under pressure from the Covid Recovery Group (CRG) of right-wing backbench Tory MPs, the Government set an arbitrary date for the relaxation of the lockdown, and unfortunately kept to it, despite the evidence that by then the lockdown was only just becoming effective.

As a result precautions were relaxed far too early, allowing Covid-19 to continue to spread, necessitating our current third national lockdown.

The Government, and particularly the NHS, are to be congratulated on the UK’s successful vaccination programme, which is making very good progress.

Yet we need to be wary, as it is now apparent that the available vaccines do not provide as much protection against the latest variants of Covid-19.

Thus the Government needs to relax restrictions cautiously, allowing enough time for their effects to become apparent, thus ensuring that we keep Covid-19 under control.

If it fails to do this, we risk another flare-up, and the necessity of yet more restrictions, and even a fourth national lockdown!

Nevertheless, the CRG is already calling for an end to all restrictions once the top nine ‘at risk’ groups have been offered vaccination (probably in May), irrespective of the then situation. Fortunately the Government has so far rejected this foolish advice; it must continue to do so.

Alan Jordan, Middridge.