RATHER than the SNP Government shelling out even more funds to an American-owned firm in Glasgow to deconstruct the Louisa Jordan Covid hospital Glasgow ("Fears over £430,000 contract to shut down emergency hospital", The Herald, September 26), it could be more pertinent to consider redistributing the contents to allow the provision of a dedicated separate infectious disease hospital for Scotland with its own dedicated staff and cleaners which could serve not only the Covid but any other infectious illnesses.

It is estimated more than 2,000 people have been infected with Covid-19 in our NHS hospitals. This implies a total lack of proper provision of infection control equipment and staff training. Private hospitals such as the Spire in Edinburgh have good infection control. Why has this been so evidently lacking in the NHS?

Only proper infection control can allow our NHS hospitals to return to their normal functions of treating the vast majority of the population who do not have Covid or other infectious illnesses.

Further, it is unacceptable that GP clinics and laboratories are not working properly, and that all outpatient clinics and hospitals servicing the majority of the population have been closed again when they should be working. Who is responsible for such cavalier decision making? It certainly does not happen in other countries in Europe or America.

The consequence risk to the health of the growing numbers of untreated people with cancers, heart disease and other illnesses from serious illness and death is simply unacceptable (notwithstanding the fact that this SNP government has never acknowledged or addressed the appalling death rate of 2600 women in Scotland dying from undiagnosed and untreated heart disease every year).

We need reform and good management in our NHS, and never more so than now.

Elizabeth Marshall, Edinburgh EH66.

ACCEPTING students back to Scottish universities and not expecting a major Covid-19 outbreak was an example of the Government's wishful thinking typical during this pandemic.

Scottish whack-a-mole is not working, but all is not lost. The Government now has an opportunity to implement another way of dealing with the coronavirus: encourage natural herd immunity. (For those who are squeamish about a term which has been useful to science for a century, try "community immunity".)

The message for young healthy students should be: get the virus, stay away from the vulnerable while infectious, go home for Christmas.

The invidious restrictions on Scottish students can be relaxed, and we should start an honest debate about controlled herd immunity.

The Scottish Government should tell us its plan for the next year at least, and let us decide if we will accept it. Any plan which relies on a hypothetical vaccine or indeterminate loss of liberty can be rejected.

John Burton, Thornhill.

THERE is no doubting the fact that there are few politicians who can match Nicola Sturgeon's fluent verbal acrobatics. With apparent reluctance she takes her daily stance at the podium and lectures us interminably with the minutiae of the latest Covid news accompanied by touching displays of empathy and concern. Clearly the First Minister is riding on the crest of a populist wave, even gaining a degree of respect from many who are not SNP supporters. However, her frequent protestations that she is not making political capital out of this unprecedented access to the nation's ear are an insult to our intelligence. The Shakespearean line "the lady doth protest too much, methinks" springs to mind.

Her super-cautious approach to the Covid situation has all too frequently been calculated to be deliberately at slight variance with that of the UK Government. Many have applauded it and yet here we are now, in spite of this caution, with Scotland faring little better than the rest of the UK.

Ms Sturgeon seems heedless of the financial black hole that would engulf us if we plunge into the abyss of independence or of a divorce process that would make Brexit seem like a walk in the park. She may well be the Mistress of Verbosity who exerts iron control over her party's utterances in blind pursuit of her dream, but take note of her 10-year report card which might read something like "'Showed a tendency to talk too much with her head in the clouds. In spite of showing promise, became a divisive influence with obsessive and disruptive tendencies. Lack of common sense and attention to detail. In summary, serious under achievement." Those whose emotions rule their heads should take note before it is too late.

Neil J Bryce, Kelso.