Some people argue against the end of lockdown and accuse the government of putting the economy before saving lives.

Let’s imagine that the country stays in lockdown.

Millions of people will be out of work and without income - their employers will be unable to pay their wages as one by one they go bust.

At the moment the government are bailing out more than eight million workers through the furlough scheme by borrowing money in the international money markets. This cannot go on forever, for two reasons.

Firstly, this money has to be paid back with interest and there is a limit to how much the government can afford to pay back.

Secondly, as the government debt gets larger international lenders will refuse to lend us any more for fear of never being repaid.

By this time many companies will have gone bankrupt and jobs will never recover.

This means that government tax receipts will dry up resulting in little or no income for the government.

With no income there will be no social security benefits or state old age pensions so all of these beneficiaries will join the millions already without income, causing the remaining companies to also go bankrupt as fewer people have money to spend.

The stock market will collapse and with it everybody’s private pensions including final salary schemes.

There will be nothing left and our people will be the ones crossing the channel as refugees.

Getting the economy back is essential if we are to survive.

Tony Taylor, Grassholme, Woodthorpe, York