A copy of the letter to the new general manager recently appointed to manage our institution for the elderly. He expressed concern for the spread of the coronavirus and suggested that it is mandatory for the unvaccinated to wear masks.

My letter follows:-

I note your concern and advice about the wearing of masks and the need for isolation. I have not had the vaccination and don't intend to have it either. The NHS rates me as high risk owing to many encounters with what was deemed to be terminal cancer 20 years ago. I am in excellent health and have no intention of risking adverse reactions arising from the vaccine. 

I am a pharmacist, and I deregistered after 50 years of active participation. I find the global reaction to COVID implausible. After all, what is the point of being vaccinated if it is to fear the presence of the unvaccinated? Both the vaccinated and the unvaccinated carry the active virus on their person to the same extent. The virus is inactivated only when it enters the bloodstream and encounters the body's defence mechanism. It follows then; even a vaccinated person can be teeming with the virus within their throat and nasal passages just waiting for expulsion. The same is true for any other viral or bacterial infection, whether influenza or a common cold.

The current hype or extravagant and intensive reaction concerning COVID is beyond all reason. In Britain, mad cow disease reached its peak in 1993, with almost 1,000 new cases being reported every week. Since then, little has emerged while most young people of influential age today were born around 1990, are 30 years of age and have been through university.

Current young policymakers and reporters are unaware of life before 1960 when we had to contend with poliomyelitis, measles, mumps and many other diseases. Currently, the coronavirus kills around 0.5 per cent of the people it infects; it is probably minuscule within the global population. In the 20th century alone, smallpox killed hundreds of millions of people before its gradual eradication.

The world reaction to the coronavirus is extreme and ignorant. It has probably caused more chaos than necessary and permanent damage to humankind's superstructure. This strategic structure is the central or most important element of human existence. It has become so large that a tipping point is inevitable, and it has probably reached a rational limit to increase further.