Letter: Council needs to accept we must live with virus

I am really concerned by Calderdale Council’s attitude towards coronavirus - and the words of the Director of Public Health last week have prompted me to write.

Her approach seems to be to want to scare people, the council’s big threatening graphics seeking to terrify rather than reassure.

If it were justified, it might be understandable but it just doesn’t seem to be. Cases in some parts of Halifax have been high but in most of Calderdale, including here in Clifton, there’ve been few - or in many, no - cases.

And the completely narrow view of public health threatens to cause so much greater harm than Covid ever could.

We need businesses to grow, shops to thrive and people to be confident - while taking all necessary precautions in this changed world. Not doing so will mean more jobs lost, more struggling families and more deprivation. We need our schools to reopen to get our children back to learning, get vulnerable young people back in a place of sanctuary and stop their mental health from suffering any more.

Everything the council is doing seems to me, plus all the family, friends and colleagues I’ve spoken with, to be completely out of proportion and so narrow in focus that it in itself presents a genuine threat to public health and the future of Calderdale.

Of course every case of coronavirus is one too many, every death (thankfully which are now very rare as we get better at treating it) a tragedy, but we’re going to have to live with this virus for some time and we can’t put everything on hold while we do that.

Doing so will destroy lives and it’s time the council accept the reality of this, widened their perspective and stopped terrifying its residents.