THE Government flying blind, the lessons learned from lockdowns and the screening of university students were the topics raised by columnists and contributors in the newspapers.

The Daily Mail

Alex Brummer said MPs, the business community and employees were all discovering a terrible truth.

“When it comes to the economic impact of the tier levels that will determine the future of enterprise up and down the country during the coming months, the Government is clearly flying blind,” he said. “The ‘impact statement’ was designed to persuade dissenting Tory MPs it was right to place almost the whole country under tough Tier 2 and Tier 3 measures. Yet it did not even begin to weigh the economic and health costs against those of the pandemic.”

He said output had been savaged and was predicted to tumble by 11.3 per cent this year.

“That is not only the biggest decline in national wealth for more than 300 years, it is even worse than Europe’s sickest large economy, Italy,” he said. “Japan, which avoided both a full lockdown and anything as intrusive as Britain’s higher tiers, will see a slump half that size.”

He said Donald Trump was mocked for his cavalier attitude to the pandemic but the US death rate was still lower than the UK and output not as badly hit.

“Government policy zig-zags, determined by the R rate and fears about pressures on the NHS, have shattered the high street, pubs and the hospitality sector,” he said. “As an optimist, I am hopeful that despite the ghastly mistakes, the initiative and resilience of the UK’s citizens – together with the dynamism of our entrepreneurs and wealth creators – will see us through this and our eventual return to prosperity. But the nation deserved so much better.”

The Daily Express

Fiyaz Mughal, founder of Faith Matters, said we should not forget the lessons that 2020 has taught us about building bridges.

“If the first lockdown brought us together, the second was in more danger of tearing us apart, with the perceived injustices of the tier system and how it affected different towns, regions and communities,” he said. “This showed how resentments can easily be stoked and how we must act to calm them down.”

He said the vaccines brought hope that life will return to something closer to normal by spring.

“We may then look back at 2020 with fear and anxiety for all the pain and turbulence it created, and reflect upon how the trauma of the pandemic has changed and shaped us all,” he said.

As well as the loss of lives and livelihoods, he said, the pandemic had also showed how resilient our nation is.

“In the fight against the virus, many of those who gave up their lives to save others came from black and minority ethnic (BAME) communities,” he said. “Who can forget the pictures of doctors and nurses looking overwhelmed, but giving hope to those who were alone in hospital and the reassurance that they gave us all?”

He said we didn’t see black or white, we just saw ‘us’ - people coming together to protect men, women and children from a microscopic enemy.

“Care, affection and empathy are core values of our communities and our country and we must never lose sight of them.”

The Guardian

Dr Sian Taylor-Phillips, professor of population health at Warwick University, said coronavirus screening was being rolled out across universities this week.

“A preliminary Public Health England evaluation found that the new lateral flow test that is to used by universities had previously missed cases of coronavirus in between a quarter to a half of people it tested, by giving a negative reading,” she warned. “Many students recently infected (in the few days before the test) will also be missed: this is because coronavirus only becomes detectable a few days after infection has occurred.”

She said the authorities needed to be honest with people about the good and bad parts of screening, and let them make their own informed choice whether to take part.

“We should tell families openly that these tests can detect some asymptomatic cases but they miss some, too, and trust people to make sensible choices for their own families,” she said. “Such an approach will help avoid the worst possible outcome from screening students for coronavirus: that young people returning home end up infecting elderly or vulnerable relatives based on a misunderstanding of what negative results mean.”