Lack of ventilators cost lives

Gabriel Scally justifiably castigates Johnson’s government for failures, including omitting to fund an urgent programme of improving workplace ventilation before winter sets in (“The winter Covid plan will be marked by delay, confusion and ignorance. Sound familiar?”, Comment, last week. But ventilators used to treat Covid are also important.

Prof Devi Sridhar, Edinburgh University’s chair of global public health, pointed out in March 2020 that the government squandered nine weeks by failing to ensure enough PPE and ventilators. It goes back further than that: despite a 2016 simulation highlighting the risk of “inadequate ventilation” in a future pandemic, successive Conservative governments failed to ensure sufficient supplies of ventilators.

Scally’s important point is that, in contrast to the Johnson government’s bumbling approach, those countries whose strategy controlled the virus not only saved lives but safeguarded their economies.

David Murray

Wallington, Surrey