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Hello, I'm Nulam Agavrian on the BBC World Service and this is BBC OS,

Conversations on Coronavirus, threats to health workers.

As the pandemic continues to polarise views, one of our conversations here is about disturbing changes

in how the public is viewing and treating medical professionals. A Dr. and Canada and a midwife

in the UK share with us their experience of insults and even death threats.

To be honest, it was horrific because it was really personal. It's threatening to kill me and

find out where I live and take my children and various things like that, really quite shocking.

I had police protection for three weeks. We'll hear more about such attitudes and behaviour

in just a moment, but as many countries contemplate their response to rising infections,

the United States recorded more than 800,000 deaths from COVID-19. We should remember that the US

has a large population, but that statistic is the highest known death toll of any country

in the world. Although if you consider the number of deaths, pair 100,000 people in a population,

then there are several countries above the US. Dr. Amesh Adalja is a senior scholar at the US

Johns Hopkins Centre for Health Security in Baltimore, Maryland, as well as an infectious disease,

critical care and emergency medicine physician. My colleague, James Reynolds, spoke to him about

working on the front line during the pandemic. It is the unvaccinated that are taking up ICU beds.

It is the unvaccinated that are dying. Sure, there are a small proportion of people who have

severe breakthrough infections, but the reason why we're still in this limbo in the United States,

the reason why hospitals worry about capacity is because there are too many unvaccinated people

with high risk conditions, and that's really what's driving the concern that we have. That's what's

...