Keeping loved ones safe is not ‘cowering’, Sajid Javid

Photograph: Henry Nicholls/Reuters

How utterly incomprehensible that the health secretary should tell us not to cower from Covid, despite his later apology (Sajid Javid apologises for saying it was time to stop ‘cowering’ from Covid). But why am I not surprised?

I was shielding due to severe asthma that put me in the clinically extremely vulnerable group. Those of us shielding were told we were protecting ourselves and the NHS. How does Sajid Javid have the temerity to use the word “cower” less than a week after the word “cautious” was used in press conferences?

Javid needs to reflect on the numbers who have died, on the many who said goodbye to loved ones online or were unable to say goodbye at all. Protecting loved ones is not cowering. What he obviously cannot grasp is that so many people, young and old, have acted according to the guidelines that this government has set. If anyone is cowering, it is this government when faced with criticism from those who cry that our “freedom” is being stolen.
Sue Hardman
Woodbridge, Suffolk

• Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication.