THE officials in the local NHS and council who are supposed to guard our welfare are falling down on the job.

Normally this does not matter particularly.

These people can do their silly 'virtue signalling' act for the media and there are no consequences.

When Wirral 'welcomed' the first 88 coronavirus 'suspects' to Arrowe Park we 'got away with it', the reason being that the general infection rate was low among those brought home from Wuhan, around 3%.

But it was known that on the cruise ship at Yokohama, 700 out of 4,700 had the disease, an infection rate of 15%.

Even so, our guardians again played Russian roulette with our health and 'welcomed' in the next 32 'suspects' and this time the gun went off.

Four of these people have the coronavirus.

May I predict on the basis of the cruise ship infection rate we can expect several more of our 'welcome guests' to be infected.

If this dangerous disease gets loose on Wirral I suggest the ordinary residents will know who to blame and act accordingly.

Professor D P Gregg (retired), Spital