YOUR editorial comment that Covid ‘kills people with ruthless efficiency’ (The Press, June 15) cannot go unchallenged.

Official statistics show this is not the case.

Covid can hardly be described as deadly when a third of people infected have no symptoms and it is necessary to have a test to find out if one has actually got it.

Over 99 per cent of cases recover from the virus and of those that don’t the average age of death in the UK is 81 years - almost the same as average life expectancy.

Heart disease and cancer are far more efficient at ending human life; but sadly these mortalities appear to have significantly increased as a direct result of resources being focused far too much on Covid 19.

And goodness knows what the current suicide rate is following fifteen months of excessive depressing restrictions on civil liberties that have taken centuries to acquire.

I am not alone in believing the harm being done by Covid restrictions far exceeds any harm done by the virus itself.

I therefore disagree with your assertion that delaying freedom day was the correct thing to do.

As a septuagenarian I am supposed to be in the vulnerable group. But I have no fear of Covid. It is my own control-freak oppressive government that I am frightened of.

Matthew Laverack, Eldon Street, York