We are ignoring Covid case rises once again | Letters

The decision to stop reporting the Covid growth rate is the latest in a series of attempts to limit the available information about the current spread, writes Dr Brian Ramsden, while Susan Treagus has been keeping a Covid diary

With a predictable adherence to the principle of burying bad news, the government's UK Health Security Agency announced on the Friday before Christmas that it is now ceasing to publish the reproduction number - the R value - and the growth rate for Covid-19 in the UK (UK to stop publishing Covid modelling data, 25 December).

This decision was taken at a time when the R value and the growth rate both show that the prevalence of Covid is increasing in the UK. This is just the latest in a series of attempts to minimise the availability of information about Covid. Data about tests is virtually nonexistent, because tests are no longer freely available; contact tracing has ceased; and daily reporting of infections stopped when people were told there was no longer a need to use masks or to self-isolate.