Solutions for tracing and making contacts

Why is it that the government is struggling to recruit contact tracers (Wanted ads posted in drive to hire Covid-19 contact tracer ‘army’, 14 May) while there is a mass of people who volunteered to support the NHS, most of whom still await a call? The task does not apparently require any particular skill and should be within the capacity of most people. Why turn to recruitment agencies when a willing force of volunteers is waiting impatiently for something to do?
Richard Marsh
Retired consultant in anaesthetics and intensive care, Ravensthorpe, Northamptonshire

• I am afraid Wendy Ritson is wrong (Letters, 14 May). If her son and partner come to meet her in the park, then she will still have met two people. However, if she takes a towel and sunglasses, and they do too, they can happily sunbathe 2 metres apart. She is of course right when she says “you couldn’t make it up, but they just have”.
Mike Stevenson
Southwell, Nottinghamshire

• I well remember hearing Ken Dodd tell us: “What a wonderful day to fill your wife’s tights with potatoes and tell her to be thankful for small Murphy’s” (Letters, 15 May).
Alan Worrow
Peebles

• Men wear their wives’ tights when wading in Australian tropical waters to protect from painful and possibly lethal box jellyfish stings.
Dr John Doherty
Gungahlin, Canberra, Australia

• A gruesomely apt anagram of coronavirus is carnivorous.
Peter Hurst
Greenfield, Saddleworth

• We’ve heard the cuckoo here for the first time in many years.
Jenny Moir
Chelmsford, Essex

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