A year of Covid

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 2 March 2021

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In March 2020 the UK was gearing up to face the Covid-19 pandemic. Cases were increasing rapidly and by the end of month the country was in full lockdown with medics facing their toughest ever test. A group of doctors and nurses in intensive care units recorded audio diaries for the BBC which illustrated the true scale of the professional and personal challenge they faced. The UK was to become one of the worst hit countries for Covid-19 deaths in Europe. One year on – in the midst of a second wave - and a third lockdown - reporter Jane Deith revisits some of those doctors and nurses to find out how they are surviving the biggest challenge of their careers.

Producer: Rob Cave

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Jane Deith. Welcome to Assignment on the BBC World Service.
0:07.0	At the beginning of 2020, two people in York in the North of England tested positive for the Wuhan novel
0:14.8	coronavirus. In the 12 months since COVID-19 has ripped through the UK's
0:20.4	defenses killing more than 130,000 people.
0:24.3	In the early months of the pandemic, we asked some doctors and nurses
0:31.4	to keep diaries for the BBC.
0:36.2	Imagine being overwhelmed with patients struck down with a new disease you don't know how to treat.
0:43.0	Normally as an intensive care doctor I would expect to save two of the three lives of people,
0:52.0	but at the moment during the pandemic we seem to be only saving
0:57.8	one out of two lives.
0:59.8	Deep down I'm really rather find.
1:03.0	It feels like I can't give my patient what they should be having.
1:08.0	Because you look after somebody the way that you want to be looked after,
1:12.0	or the way that you'd want to be looked after or the way that your parents should be looked
1:15.7	after anybody.
1:17.7	But this sense of failure to an extent that I've never experienced in my over two decades of medical practice is overwhelming.
1:31.0	In this program, our medics will share their diaries from early last year.
1:36.0	Then we'll catch up and hear how they're coping with the unrelenting pressure of a year of COVID.
1:43.0	Monday the 16th of March, social distancing begins.
1:48.0	That week Rupert Pierce, an intensive care consultant at the Royal London Hospital, started recording. This
1:55.0	an intensive care consultant at the Royal London Hospital started recording. It was an unseasonably warm spring.
1:58.0	This morning I woke up on a gorgeous spring day and left the house.
	...

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