I was astonished at the easy-going attitude of most locals to the risks of viral transmission - something that has fortunately changed recently.

But along with the rise in awareness, there has been a definite rise in complaints.

Why didn't ScoMo do this?

Why didn't the hospital planners do that?

Why doesn't Centrelink get its act together?

Why can't the authorities get their message straight?

Amazingly, this is often from the same people that weren't wearing masks in the early stages of the epidemic.

I would suggest that instead of complaining about "them" not getting it right, we all assume a collective responsibility to make it difficult for the virus to spread.

It isn't that hard, and it will make the jobs of the people we all depend on - truckies, posties, shop workers, doctors - much easier if they know we are thinking of them first, not just carrying on with our old potentially lethal habits.

Instead of "why don't they", maybe we could instead start asking "why don't I?"

MY goodness. How the world and our thinking has changed in 2020.

As a business strategy, we used to say, "think global, act local".

Perhaps now, so that we can save Tasmanian jobs, businesses and help the state recover, we say, "think local, act local and buy local".

REGARDING the Chinese Takeover, Donald Boden (The Examiner, March 31).

Perhaps we could think outside the box and consider an international language (whatever that might be) to be taught to all the children in the schools of the world as an auxiliary to their native tongue.

And to Dr J. M. Sands, of Legana, I agree about how lucky we are as retirees.

If you are of as advanced age as I am and come from England, you will also add to your list of assets the point that we have a never-forgotten experience of living through WWII with bombings, raids, blackouts, food shortages, daily fear of death for ourselves or our loved ones in the trenches.

For us, it is like "here we go again".

HANDS Off Our Gorge believes the elected councillors of Launceston will make the right decision to protect Cataract Gorge's immense values and will reject the proposed Launceston skyway gondola.

However, if the proposed state major projects legislation was implemented, this decision could be plucked by the planning minister from their hands and decided by a select panel, with no community right of appeal.

We have a planning system to balance development with local natural and cultural values - the major projects bill would bypass this system and is a threat to our democracy.

SCOMO is spending billions of our dollars ad hoc and isolating the nation so that everyone is unemployed and no products or people go in or out of our country.

Instead, now is the perfect time to invest that money to re-establish and support our manufacturing industries and farmers to produce all the goods, food and resources our nation requires, and sell only the excess to other countries.

We can manufacture and supply everything we need. We used to.

Now is the perfect opportunity for us to become 100 per cent self-sufficient and employed, and not to be at the mercy of other countries' trade whims or natural and unnatural disasters.

We can be fully up and running by the time the coronavirus pandemic is over, with no unemployment.

BRANDON Cormack is lucky his letter (The Examiner, March 24) was not subjected to fact-checking with his spurious claims.

His reference to the "monstrous prison" serves to paint a dark picture of the Northern Regional Prison, which is not going in the middle of the route to the GWT, nor will it dominate Westbury as it is located kilometres away on the far side of the Bass Highway and a rail line.

Tourists will need to detour if they want to see the jail.

Mr Cormack's claim that no one stops in or near a prison town is equally untrue.

Berrima on the NSW Southern Highlands is a tourist town offering far more attractions and tourist numbers than Westbury could hope for, and Berrima jail is located right in the middle of this lovely quaint village.

A little further south is Goulburn's Supermax Prison, home to the worst criminals in Australia is located closer to town than the proposed prison is to Westbury.

As for claims that no one stops in or near a prison town, all I can say is good luck finding a parking space in Goulburn, and it is located off the main highway.

If Mr Cormack wants more proof, he can look at Silverwater Prison.

Located almost in the demographic centre of Sydney, Silverwater Prison looks over light industry, shopping centres and houses with a median price above $1 million.