Dr Aodhan Breathnach says the general overreach of the state during the pandemic led to mistrust, Desmond Hewitt considers evidence and irrationality, and Richard Bunning is concerned by the poison on social media

The very title of Laura Spinney’s piece is a sad reflection of how pandemic control preferences quickly aligned along traditional political lines, to everybody’s detriment (Five years on from the pandemic, the right’s fake Covid narrative has been turbocharged into the mainstream, 9 March). If the right has been guilty of undermining science and scientists, I also observed through the pandemic how the left displayed a disturbing enthusiasm to restrict liberty, using fear and guilt to encourage compliance with control measures, and many arguing to prolong the restrictions beyond the point where they were doing any good.

I have experience of how the Covid control measures in the NHS, while well-intentioned, were only dismantled at a snail’s pace after the greatest danger had passed, prolonging the disruptive effect of the pandemic on the nation’s health.