Apologies to Mr. Tempest (Dorset Echo Thursday October 1st.) if my letter re. a common sense approach to Covid-19 was so upsetting.

My quote of Professor Ferguson`s forecast of 500,000 deaths as a result of the virus, was one I took from the Daily Telegraph amongst other sources.

It is one that has been quoted many times since in a variety of contexts) Despite the fact they have never used my services as a proof reader, I generally find their information to be pretty good.

Neil Ferguson is the man who predicted deaths from BSE would be 120,000.

The number so far over the many years since its inception, has been given as twelve. Not a man therefore, whose forecasts are seen surmounted with a golden halo.

The emergency hospitals built to protect the NHS, were indeed quickly proved to be unnecessary and were rapidly taken down.

The shortages of PPE resulted from a lack of preparedness of the NHS despite warnings following the SARS epidemic.

The numbers of those dying with Covid are not the same as those dying from Covid, as has been show many times (again in figures in the Telegraph, amongst others).

I don’t think I actually called for a cull of the old but I am, as an octogenarian, prepared to take my chances with a virus which from the start was said to be less likely to hit me, than lightning.

This is not bravado, just plain common sense. What does incense me is the needless suffering and injustice of asking the young to protect the old and the instruction from Mr Hancock that the young, i.e my grandchildren, make sure they do not kill their granny, ie my wife, is so wrong-headed it should be indictable.

RON HILL

Weymouth