Covid-19: will the government’s mixed messages lead to another surge?

Many leading scientists are surely right to be concerned about the mixed messages sent regarding the easing of lockdown, and the perceived green light to interpret government guidelines using our own discretion. Here, on the riverside in Ely, a bar adjacent to a small green public space has been given a licence by the very benevolent council to sell takeaway food and alcohol.

On Saturday afternoon this meant social distancing was measured in centimetres, while shouting and guffawing, and sharing picnics, made sure the transmission rate had a terrific time. Toilet facilities were provided by local gateways, gardens and plastic pint pots. Friday evening ditto, and the relaxation was not yet even in place. Going back to Thursday evening, this meant everyone present stopped socialising, briefly, to clap for the NHS. Just sheer madness.
Jo Jackson
Ely, Cambridgeshire

• With members of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies expressing concerns over the decision to ease the lockdown (Covid-19 spreading too fast to lift lockdown in England – Sage advisers, 29 May), has the catchphrase “we are following the science” been exposed for the convenient cloak it is for the government?
Gary Nethercott
Woodbridge, Suffolk

• A week ago Cambridge resembled a ghost town and the few people visible kept at least two metres apart. At the weekend, before the current easing of restrictions, the streets were busy and the social distancing rule was often ignored. The change must be partly attributable to Dominic Cummings. Any spike in deaths from Covid-19 over the next fortnight should cost him his political life.
Piers Brendon
Cambridge

• The new socialising rules for Scotland and Wales allow gatherings of up to eight people but only two households. The more gung-ho English rules allow gatherings of only six people but up to six households (UK lockdown rules: what you are allowed to do from Monday, 29 May). It’s difficult to square this with Boris Johnson’s advice in his 28 May press conference to “try to avoid seeing people from too many households in quick succession”. It’s yet another example of poor strategic thinking, failure to provide serious justification and confusing messaging.
Joseph Palley
Richmond, London

• It is almost impossible to imagine how those people dropped from the shielding list are feeling now (Text message tells vulnerable people they are dropped from shielding list, 27 May). After more than 10 weeks of following the rules and isolating themselves they have been cast adrift, by text, to take their chance of life or death, with little or no explanation. Does anyone, from our elitist prime minister Boris Johnson and his main man Dominic Cummings to the person at the bottom of the Downing Street hierarchy, care that thousands of mainly elderly people now think they have been thrown on to the “not necessary on voyage” heap of humanity? Further words have failed.
Kathleen Hines
Washington, Tyne and Wear