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I need to be shielded from this government

<span>Photograph: Adam Lister/Getty Images</span>
Photograph: Adam Lister/Getty Images

I was diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer on 25 January and have been self-isolating since the start of the pandemic. I had one session of chemotherapy before we halted that treatment because of the risk of having a wrecked immune system in the face of Covid-19. Since then, I’ve been having oral treatment organised through the excellent Nottingham University city hospital’s oncology department.

On Friday 29 May, I received two letters: one from my GP surgery and one from the hospital. They both said the same thing – I was now being defined as in need of shielding – and were accompanied by a full list of instructions and a link to the NHS website. But from Monday 1 June I’m no longer shielded (Experts decry easing of coronavirus lockdown for England’s shielders, 31 May).

I’m very happy not to be so classified, but this trivial bureaucratic idiocy is emblematic of the total incompetence and mendaciousness of this terrible government led by Dominic Cummings and his deputy, the prime minister, Boris Johnson. I am desperate to be shielded from the both of them and their government.
Phil Cosker
Waddington, Lincolnshire

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