Since the Covid panic there almost seems to be a hierarchy of deaths

I was an Alliance voter since the party was first formed but I am disappointed at Naomi Long especially.

I was struck by her reaction to the decision to build a £4 million morgue to handle the thousands of corpses expected in March/April/May.

She said that she had “no regrets”.

I repeat, £4,000,000 down the drain! How many hip and knee operations could you fund with £4 million?

It seems that Alliance and the SDLP are too scared to stand up to Robin Swann and Michelle O’Neill.

Regarding the ‘following the science’ get-out parroted by the above, there is no ‘science’ to follow, only scientists, each with an opinion based on their speciality.

The eight chief medical officers (CMOs) and Scientific Advisers covering the UK are fixated on eliminating Covid 19, ignoring advice from colleagues that such an outcome is unlikely and that the disease is now endemic anyway.

Their blasé approach to the economic consequences of their suggestions I find frightening, not to mention their unwillingness to address the increase in non-Covid deaths predicted by other specialists.

We’re almost believing that before Covid 19, nobody died in Northern Ireland!

In March we had 1,933 deaths but in January 2018 we lost 2,101, mostly due to a failure of the ‘flu vaccine. During the winter of 2017-18 there were around 50,000 UK excess deaths due to ‘flu. Anyone remember the lockdown then?

In future years, psychologists and behavioural scientists will be analysing not the pandemic of 2020 but the panic of 2020.

Initially we were told that 80% of those affected would get a mild dose or not even know they had it.

We were told, correctly, that you had to be closer than two metres for more than 15 minutes to contract it. Apparently we weren’t frightened enough so the doom merchants took over and some ended up terrified to even go outside.

At last Arlene Foster, at least, seems to have had enough. In the last week I have heard the most unlikely people, including a regular Sinn Fein voter, declare that next time she and the DUP get their vote.

Death, for some, has almost now acquired a hierarchy.

Unless you die of Covid 19, you seem not to matter.

Just go away and die of cancer, heart disease, commit suicide out of despair, but do so without fuss.

James Tinneny, Co Londonderry

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