YOU report that cafes, bars and restaurants are now legally required to collect a name and phone number from customers, to enable contact tracing if required ("Warning on pub crawls as new data rules start", The Herald, August 15). That’s a sensible and proportionate measure, but I can see an obvious flaw: some people.

I know of one former colleague, a senior pilot with British Airways, who openly boasts on social media of giving a false name and phone number when visiting pubs. Which just goes to show that it’s not only footballers who behave stupidly.

Covid-19 can be beaten, but it won’t be beaten while a small minority of citizens ignore the rules and act irresponsibly. It’s unrealistic to expect the police to attend and intervene, other than in mass breaches of the rules; and impossible for pubs and restaurants to run checks to ensure the information they’re given is honest.

It comes down to us, the vast majority who adhere to the rules as much as we can, to call out those who breach them. If your friends are giving false contact details or breaking quarantine, tell them honestly what they are: covidiots.

Doug Maughan, Dunblane.

THE reports on Covid-19 care home deaths in Scotland make very disturbing reading.

The essential facts are mind-blowing. Hundreds were discharged from Scottish hospitals and sent to care homes, without being tested for the virus. That was bad enough. It now emerges that at least 37 of those who were tested and subsequently went to care homes were found to have had the virus ("Freeman urged to explain why patients with Covid-19 were moved to care homes", The Herald, August 17). This fact simply beggars belief.

Is it any wonder then that Scotland has the third worst record in the world for virus deaths in countries of comparable size?

Nothing short of a full public inquiry is needed. What ministers, up to what level, sanctioned these actions? They must have been signed off. Who knew what? The Health Secretary should undergo a full grilling at Holyrood – or preferably by Andrew Neil on TV.

This is a scandal that is simply not going to go away.

Alexander McKay, Edinburgh EH6.

PROFESSOR Devi Sridhar claims that "Scotland is facing a stream of infections from England" ("'Infections ‘streaming in from England and Wales’", The Herald, August 17). If that were the case then over the past five months one would expect that those regions of Scotland nearest England would have a high rate of Covid-19 infection given that cross border travel for work, leisure and shopping is common. Rates of infection in Dumfries and Galloway and the Borders are actually among the lowest in the country. In the past week there have been no new cases in the former and one new case in the latter.

Perhaps Professor Sridhar's political views are clouding her professional judgement.

William Loneskie, Lauder.

IT is time to accept that Covid-19 will be part of our lives for the foreseeable future. There is no longer any real need for daily press conferences. One per week will suffice. Life, illness and death should be put in perspective. Alongside the listing of new coronavirus cases, numbers for newly diagnosed cases of cancer, heart disease, stroke and dementia should be highlighted and comparisons made. We cannot spend the rest of our lives sitting on Nicola Sturgeon’s naughty step.

Rev Dr Robert Anderson, Dundonald.