Roman Baber, a Progressive Conservative backbencher in the province of Ontario, attacked the strict new “lockdown” rules implemented by Premier and party leader Doug Ford, arguing that the threat from Covid-19 is overrated, the strains on hospitals exaggerated, and that the impact of suicides, domestic violence, and other harms attributed to shelter-in-place rules merited a reversal of this policy.

As insurrection gripped Washington, a grim Covid-19 milestone slipped by almost without notice: the country suffered more than 4,000 daily deaths from the novel coronavirus for the first time, with an average daily toll of almost 3000.

Last week CNN World published a story about rising suicide rates in Japan. It pointed out, sensationally, that more Japanese took their lives in October than lost them to Covid-19 during the entire year.

As Professor Andrew Oswald rightly observes (Letters, July 18) younger people have a much lower mortality rate from Covid-19 than their older counterparts. But that does not mean they are “virtually invulnerable” to the disease, as he concludes.

Many of those who have survived COVID-19 continue to experience serious, even debilitating, after-effects.

Even with good intentions and strong institutions, it is possible to be caught flat-footed in a pandemic.

The Trump presidency has reinforced rather than contradicted many of the main trends in modern politics.