THE signs that this current wave of the coronavirus is on its way out are surely welcome to us all.

But, as in all cases of illness, is it time to ask ourselves whether the "remedy" has ended up being worse than the

illness?

Official statistics from Brighton and Hove Council confirm that, for Brightonians, while there have indeed been sad losses to the coronavirus, the total "excess deaths" our city has seen since last January average at less than one a week, with Covid deaths at only 1.46 per cent of all fatalities.

Considering the ravages inflicted on our local economy - shops closing leaving redundancies in their wake like autumn leaves, the damage to all our children’s education, and to Brighton’s performing arts, families stretched to breaking point, not just by the virus, but worries over the immediate and long-term financial effects of these repeated lockdowns, has it been worth it?

After all the senseless hair-splitting rules, the botch job of a test-and-trace system that is voluntary and unenforceable, the euphoria of getting a vaccine that isn’t even guaranteed to be effective against new mutations, the "threat" of having to deal with normal seasonal flu, when seasonal flu numbers are down by a massive 95 per cent.

Enough scare-mongering, enough of Boris brandishing fake projections in Parliament. Isn’t it time for more common sense, more "business as usual" and more trusting in our bodies’ natural immunity because Brightonians, statistically, are proved to be a healthy bunch who shouldn’t have to be locked up like the lepers that we clearly are not.

Robert Brayley-Hodgetts

St Leonards Gardens

Hove